iBLF. 


THE 
SHIM 

LIBRARY  ©F  APICULTURE 


The  Truth 


ut 


Sweet  Clover 


Its  Value  for  Honey,  for 
Plowing  Under,  as  Fer- 
tilizer of  the  Soil,  and 
Food  for  Horses,  Cat- 
tle, Swine,  Sheep,  etc.; 
and  last,  but  not  least, 
as  a  Valuable  Plant  for 
Introduction  of  Nitro- 
gen-gathering Bacteria. 


THE  A.  I.  ROOT  COMPANY 
MEDINA,  OHIO 


Contents. 

4lf alht  ."gr&fr a-  «r Jtn  •  s wtet  .closer . .  91 

:&'itfa8ae  >nfls;  swaet  Mo^r  on   .  5,   51 

Alkaline  soils' of  California  «rfad  Colorado 39 

Ancients,  sweet  clover  known  to 76 

Australia,  sweet  clover  In 29 

Bare  spots   filled   with   sweet  clover 74 

Bloating,  remedy  for 80,  83,  84 

Calves  and  cattle,  for 11,  25,  36,  38,  46 

Cattle,  fattening  on  sweet  clover..  11,  55,  57,  58,  67,  70,  78, 
80,  84,  91 

Cattle  feeding  on  sweet  clover 66 

Coverdale,    Frank's   experiments    65 

Drainage  canal,  sweet  clover  on  banks  of 18,  21 

Rry  regions,   for    37 

Enriching  ground  with  sweet  clover 54 

Feed,  10  Ibs.,  per  square  yard 73 

Fertilizer,   value  of  for 88 

Forage  plant  in  Alabama 28 

Forerunner  of  alfalfa 67,  83 

Germany,  sweet  clover  In   50 

Gravel-pit,  sweet  clover  in 44 

Ground  from  the  bottom  of  a  well  produces  sweet  clover. . 

26,  27 

Ground,  fitting  for  corn 70,  T4 

Ground,  making  fertile  with  sweet  clover 23 

Ground,  preparing  for  alfalfa 76 

Ground,  preparing  it  for  seed    38 

Guillies  and  washouts,  to  fill 63,  82,  89 

Hay,  for   6,  7,  25,  34,  35,   56,  58,  64 

Hay,  when  to  cut   87,  90 

Hogs,   fattening  on   sweet  clover 70 

Honey  from  sweet  .clover 5,  9,  39 

Honey  produced   from    88 

Horses  and  colts,  for 6,  13,  22 

Humus,  furnishing  ground  with    70 

Inoculating    land    for    alfalfa    53 

"John   the  Baptist"   of  alfalfa    94 

King   Island,   sweet  clover   in 29,    30 

King  Island,  transforming    3 

Land  likely  to  be  overflowed 26 

Land,    making    it    productive     40 

Land,  sweet  clover  for 81 

Land,    value    for    86 

Lime  for  sweet  clover   87 

Milk  and  butter,  sweet  clover  for  22 

Miller,   Dr.   C.   C.,   notes  from 46 

Mulch    for    strawberries    56 

Nitrogen  bacteria    10 

Nitrogen  nodules  60 

Oats    sown    sweet    clover    with 95 

Origin   of    45 

Peas  sown  with  sweet  clover   2 

Pigs,   for 23,    24,   38,   93 

Plowing  under  to  grow  potatoes   11,  43 

(Continued  on  page  three  of  cover.) 


The  Truth  About  Sweet 
Clover 


Its  Value  for  Honey,  for  Plowing  Under, 
as  a  Fertilizer  of  the  Soil,  and  Food  for 
Horses,  Cattle,  Swine,  Sheep,  etc.; 
and  last,  but  not  least,  as  a  Val- 
uable Plant  for  the  Intro- 
duction   of  Nitrogen- 
gathering  Bacteria. 


A  Compilation  of  Articles  that  have  Appeared 
in  Gleanings  in  Bee  Culture  from  1905  to  1910; 
also  Clippings  from  Various  Agricultural  Peri- 
odicals Scattered  all  orer  Our  Land. 


THE  A.  I.  BOOT   COMPANY. 
MEDINA,  OHIO 

1910 


A 


INTRODUCTORY. 

There  has  been  so  much  discussion  in  regard  to 
.  .-sweet  clover  for  years  past  that  I  have  thought  best 
,><H*to  present  in  this  booklet  some  testimonials  from 
bee-keepers  and  others  from  many  widely  separated 
localities.  There  are  certain  people  who  will  have 
it  that  sweet  clover  is  a  noxious  weed,  and  that  its 
spread  should  be  restrained  by  law;  in  fact,  there 
have  been  laws  and  ordinances  passed  requiring  farm- 
ers and  others  to  mow  it  down  along  the  roadsides; 
but  at  the  present  time  I  believe  our  best  agricultur- 
ists regard  it  as  no  more  a  weed  than  many  of  the 
other  clovers;  and  it  is  just  as  easy  to  eradicate  it 
by  plowing  it  under.  Our  Ohio  Experiment  Station 
has  at  different  times  expressed  its  opinion  in  regard 
to  it;  and  below  is  a  statement  recently  furnished  us 
from  the  present  able  director,  Professor  Thorne: 

SWEET    CLOVER,    MAY    IT    UNDER    ANY    CIRCUMSTANCES    BE 
CLASSED   AS    A   NOXIOUS    WEED? 

OHIO  AGRICULTURAL  EXPERIMENT  STATION, 

WOOSTER,  OHIO,  Feb.  23,  1905. 

Mr.  Root : — When  you  get  out  a  new  circular  I  wish  you 
would  cut  out  the  statement  that  this  station  has  ever 
classed  sweet  clover  as  a  noxious  weed.  Away  back  in 
1877-78,  I  called  attention,  through  Farm  and  Fireside,  in 
an  article  which  was  copied  generally  in  the  agricultural 
press,  to  the  fact  that  this  plant  grows  only  where  noth- 
ing else  will  grow,  and  appears  to  be  designed  as  a  reno- 
vator of  exhausted  soils.  I  have  never  permitted  it  to  be 
classed  as  a  noxious  weed  while  in  control  of  this  station. 
CHAS.  E.  THORNE,  Director. 

Just  at  present  sweet  clover  is  coming  out  more 
prominently  than  ever  before,  because  it  is  found  to 
be  one  of  the  best  of  the  legumes  for  introducing  the 
nitrogen  bacteria  that  have  the  little  nodules  on  the 
roots  of  the  plants.  We  have  not  space  in  this  circu- 


497822 


lar  to  g?/ i^to;  t#6  :matter/.of  "tfce  "nitro  culture;"  but 
as  We  go %  to 'pr^sVit  "promises  .feo  be  one  of  the  greatest 
achievements  in  the  way  of  modern  agriculture;  in 
fact,  it  has  been  termed,  in  a  vein  of  pleasantry,  "a 
process  by  which  the  up-to-date  farmer  may  carry  his 
fertilizer  in  his  vest  pocket."  Our  experiment  sta- 
tions have  for  many  years  decided  that  sweet  clover  is 
one  of  the  best  clovers  to  plow  under  for  the  pur- 
pose of  enriching  unfertile  or  worn-out  soils. 

As  an  indication  of  the  change  in  public  opinion 
in  regard  to  sweet  clover,  I  may  say  that,  for  some 
time  past,  the  price  of  sweet-  clover  seed  has  been 
steadily  advancing.  At  the  present  time  the  call  is 
greater  than  ever  before;  in  fact,  we  are  sold  out 
of  seed  as  we  go  to  press,  and  have  advertised  north, 
south,  east  and  -west  for  a  new  supply  if  it  can  be 
had  anywhere  in  the  United  States. 
May  1,  1910.  A.  I.  ROOT. 


IMPORTED   SWEET-CLOVER  SEED.     . 

Since  the  above  was  put  in  type  I  am  informed  that  a  large 
part  of  the  sweet-clover  seed  now  on  the  market  is  imported 
from  foreign  countries;  and  in  order  to  test  this  seed  I  have 
taken  some  samples  from  sacks  holding  several  hundred 
pounds,  and  sowed  them  in  our  little  greenhouse.  I  am  glad  to 
tell  you  that  not  only  does  almost  every  seed  germinate,  but  the 
plants  are  up  so  as  to  be  visible  in  just  three  days  from  the  time 
of  sowing.  These  imported  seeds  all  have  the  hulls  removed; 
and  what  I  have  been  enabled  to  get  hold  of  is  remarkably 
clean,  and  free  from  weed  seeds  of  any  sort,  which  can  hardly 
be  said  of  most  of  the  seeds  produced  in  the  United  States,  and 
sold  with  the  hulls  on.  And,  by  the  way,  seeds  sown  with  the 
•  hulls  on  are  much  slower  in  germinating.  At  the  present  writ- 
ing it  is  my  impression  that  we  should,  as  far  as  possible,  use 
seeds  with  the  hulls  taken  off.  The  cost  is  three  to  five  cents 
more  per  pound;  but  as  you  get  many  more  seeds  in  a  pound  it 
will  probably  be  as  cheap,  or  cheaper,  in  the  end. 

June  1,  1910. 


Testimonials  from  all  over  the  World  in 

Regard  to  the  Value  of  the 

Sweet-clover  Plant. 


SWEET     CLOVER WILL    FARM     STOCK     EAT    IT? 

Dear  Sir: — I  have  sown  sweet  clover  in  a  small 
way  several  times,  but  my  sheep  (about  100)  always 
eat  it  so  close  that  it  dies.  I  will  try  to  keep  the 
sheep  off. 

Dutch,  Va.,  July  3.  W.  C.  JACKSON. 

SOWING  THE   SEED  WITH   OATS. 

I  have  three  acres  of  sweet  clover,  the  white 
variety,  which  I  sowed  last  year  with  oats.  It  is  a 
fine  growth,  and  has  been  blooming,  and  the  bees 
have  been  literally  swarming  on  it  for  several  weeks, 
li  is  seeding  very  heavy,  and  is  free  from  any  thing 
else.  HENRY  STEWART. 

Prophetstown.   111. 

SWEET    CLOVER   IN    ILLINOIS 

Sweet  clover  is  one  of  the  best  honey-plants  that 
I  have.  I  am  glad  that  some  people  don't  know  how 
to  kill  it.  I  have  no  trouble  in  killing  it  where  I 
don't  want  it  to  grow.  Stock  eat  it  here.  When 
pastures  are  short  the  stock  are  herded  on  the  road, 
and  they  eat  it  as  quickly  as  anything  else. 

Sheffield,   111.  A.  L.  KILDOW. 

SWEET  CLOVER  FOR  BEES  AND  FARM  STOCK. 

I  should  like  to  say  a  few  words  for  sweet  clover. 
I  finished  extracting  on  the  15th.  I  got  2500  Ibs.  of 
sweet-clover  honey  from  60  hives.  There  is  but  little 
ii.  any  white-clover  honey  mixed  with  it.  I  have 
tnirty  acres  of  this  sweet  clover  on  my  place.  It  is 
good  cattle  pasture  in  the  early  spring  and  late  fall. 

S.  R.  FLETCHER. 

Onawa,  la.,  Aug.  16,  1906. 

SWEET    CLOVER    FOR    ALKALI    SOILS. 

We  have  nothing  so  valuable  here  as  sweet  clover 
to  enrich  alkali  lands.  Wherever  it  has  grown  for 

5 


two  or-  ;mota  ? ears  J£  h&s,  left  a  rich  spot.  I  will 
sow  it  on  all  my  aikafi  land  this  spring  that  I  can 
get  water  on,  as  it  needs  irrigation  here  the  same 
as  alfalfa. 

A.  A.  BROWN. 
Gazelle,  Cal.,  Jan.  30,  1899. 

SWEET  CLOVER  FOR  COWS. 

What  kind  of  cattle  does  Mr.  Sawyer  have,  any- 
how? If  I  had  a  cow  that  would  not  eat  sweet  clover 
aiter  I  had  kept  her  six  months  I  would  certainly 
dispose  of  her.  I  have  sweet  clover  growing  in  my 
pasture,  but  I  have  as  yet  to  see  it  bloom.  The  cat- 
tle keep  it  eaten  down  all  the  time. 

JAS.  PRATT. 

Cumminsville,  Neb.,  Dec.  31,  1899. 

PREFERRED    TO    ALFALFA    BY    A    HORSE. 

I  cut  a  crop  of  sweet  clover  this  year,  threshing  it 
for  seed,  and  giving  some  of  the  straw  to  the  horse, 
i  found  it  would  pick  out  the  old  harsh  sweet-clover 
straw  in  preference  to  good  alfalfa  hay.  Of  course, 
the  leaves  were  all  threshed  off,  leaving  just  the 
stems;  but  the  horse  was  very  eager  for  it,  while 
cows  would  not  touch  it.  The  hay  was  not  cut 
until  the  plants  were  dead  and  yellow. 

D.  E.  ROSE. 

Douglas,  Kan.,  Sept.  15,  1903. 

THE   VALUE  OF    SWEET   CLOVER   AND   OATS   FOR   HAY. 

I  have  a  correspondent  in  Alabama  who  owns  a 
farm  of  640  acres,  who  grows  160  acres  per  year  of 
oats  and  sweet  clover,  and  cuts  the  combination  crop 
expressly  for  hay.  He  has  blooded  stock  (cattle)  and 
keeps  no  bees.  He  says  the  hay  when  baled  and  mar- 
keted in  Birmingham,  Ala.,  sells  readily  at  $15  per 
ton.  M.  M.  BALDRIDGE. 

!    St.  Charles,  111.,  Aug.  10,  1906. 

SWEET     CLOVER — WHAT     THE     ILLINOIS     EXPERIMENT     STA- 
TION  SAYS  OF  IT.,  ETC. 

I  send  herewith  circular  No.  116,  Illinois  Experi- 
ment Station,  which  refers  to  sweet  clover  as  one  of 
the  most  useful  legumes  for  green  manuring. 

6 


I  have  six  acres  of  sweet  clover  which  was  sown 
in  1907  with  oats.  It  stands  knee  high  now,  and  the 
growth  would  be  about  all  a  plow  would  want  to  turn 
under.  On  a  portion  of  the  piece  I  cut  a  ton  per* 
acre  off  from  it  last  fall,  and  put  it  up  for  hay. 

HENRY  STEWART.    ; 

Prophetstown,  111.,  July  1,  1908. 

SWEET    CLOVER DOES    IT   WINTER    KILL? 

The  seed  you  sent  me  I  sowed  on  clay  land  last 
spring,  1906.  It  made  a  good  stand  last  summer.  It, 
is  almost  3  ft.  high  now,  and  looks  fine,  but  it  winter- 
killed in  spots,  making  it  uneven.  I  think  it  would 
be  a  fine  clover  for  the  South;  but  I  fear  it  winter- 
kills too  badly  for  the  North.  CLARENCE  NEAL. 

Lanesboro,  Ind.,  Aug.  15,  '07. 

We  have  never  had  any  trouble  with  winter-killing 
when  the  seed  was  sown  tolerably  early — say  before 
July.  When  sown  in  the  fall  it  has  sometimes  failed 
to  winter  over.  But  the  seed  that  drops  off  and  sows 
itself  always  makes  a  stand  with  us,  especially  along 
the  railroad  tracks  where  the  hard  clay  subsoil  is 
piled  up  in  heaps.  These  heaps  are  covered  with  a 
dense  rank  growth  of  sweet  clover  year  after  year, 
where  it  is  not  molested,  and  where  cows  and  other 
stock  can  not  get  a  chance  to  eat  it  off. 

SWEET   CLOVER   WINTER-KILLING,    ETC. 

Perhaps  only  one-fifth  of  the  area  that  I  have  int 
sweet  clover  was  killed  by  the  frost.  While  there  are 
but  very  few  fields  of  red  clover  here  in  Grant  Co. 
but  were  entirely  destroyed  by  the  severe  winter  of 
1906,  I  think  it  safe  to  say  that  sweet  clover  can 
stand  more  heaving  of  frost  than  either  red,  alfalfa, 
or  alsike  clover.  Yes,  my  sweet  clover  grew  this  sum-: 
mer  from  3  feet  high  to — well,  the  tallest  plant  was 
8  feet  high,  and  that  on  pure  clay  ground.  There 
were  large  flies,  wasps,  hornets,  and  numerous  other 
insects  on  the  fragrant  bloom,  and  among  them  the 
bees  with  their  merry  labor-song.  C.  A.  NEAL. 

Jonesboro,  Ind.,  Nov.  15,  1$07. 


SWEET  CLOVER;  CAN  IT  BE  SOWN  AMONG  CORN  WHEN 
CULTIVATING  THE  LAST  TIME? 

Mr.  Root: — Replying  to  your  query,  June  15,  I 
would  say  I  sowed  sweet  clover  and  crimson  clover  in 
corn  about  July  28  last  year.  It  was  not  a  fair  test, 
as  a  terrific  storm  washed  much  soil  and  seed  away 
shortly  after  sowing.  The  rest  sprouted;  but  drouth 
prevented  summer  and  fall  growth.  The  first  heavy 
frost  cut  down  sweet  clover;  but  crimson  clover  was 
not  hurt,  and  grew  somewhat,  and  stayed  green  prac- 
tically all  winter,  but  plants  were  very  small.  Its 
several  roots  prevented  heaving  killing,  and  it  did 
well  this  spring.  Large  quantity  of  sweet  clover 
heaved  and  died,  except  where  roots  were  over  8 
inches.  When  the  tip  remained  in  the  ground  it 
soon  caught  up  with  crimson  clover  in  spring.  It 
seemed  that  seed  where  pressed  into  soil  sprouted 
best.  GENESIS  FARM. 

Greencastle,  Ind.,  June  25. 

SWEET   CLOVER;    WHY   IT   WON'T   GROW   ON    CULTIVATED 

GROUND. 

I  notice,  page  1048,  the  failure  which  Dr.  Miller 
and  A.  I.  Root  had  in  getting  a  good  stand  of  sweet 
clover  on  cultivated  ground.  I  think  I  can  tell  you 
where  they  failed. 

Sweet  clover  does  not  grow  on  cultivated  ground, 
for  two  reasons.  First,  because  in  such  ground  the 
soil  is  so  loose  that  it  freezes  out  and  drowns  out. 
I  saw  this  proven  by  some  cultivated  land  which 
had  lain  idle  for  three  years.  The  first  and  second 
year  the  sweet  clover  took  hold,  but  always  died  out. 
The  third  year  it  wintered  fairly  well,  and  will 
probably  do  better  in  1907. 

The  second  reason  is  that  the  original  stalk  lives 
two  years;  hence  if  it  is  not  allowed  to  go  to  seed 
it  will  be  gone  at  the  end  of  two  years. 

RAY  McQuiSTON. 

Independence,  Kan.,  April  1,  1907. 

IMPROVING    OUR    BEE    PASTURES. 

On  a  visit  to  Mr.  Salisbury,  who  resides  right  in 
the  city  of  Syracuse,  N.  y.,  he  showed  me  two  hives 

8 


from  which  he  has  taken  532  pounds  of  surplus  the 
past  season,  and  surely  his  location  would  naturally 
be  much  poorer  than  almost  any  spot  outside  of  a 
city.  But  looking  over  the  ground  there,  what  do  we 
find?  Vacant  lots  and  parks  all  around  that  city  are 
covered  with  a  rank  growth  of  sweet  clover  which 
commences  to  bloom  in  June,  and  keeps  at  it  until 
frost.  Whether  this  came  about  by  accident  or 
design  I  can  not  say;  but  certain  it  is  that  it  is  an 
enviable  position  for  any  bee-keeper,  and  one  which 
might  easily  be  imitated;  for  when  once  started  this 
plant  readily  seeds  itself  and  spreads  with  great 
rapidity,  and  we  can  scarcely  imagine  a  locality 
where  there  are  not  many  vacant  strips  and  corners 
which  might  as  well  be  growing  sweet  clover  as 
other  weeds  which  are  not  honey-producers. 
May  1st,  1909. 

AMOUNT    OF    SWEET-CLOVEE    SEED     TO    SOW    TO    THE    ACRE. 

Mr.  Root: — I  believe  you  are  advising  wrongly 
when  you  suggest  sowing  4  Ibs.  of  hulled  or  8  to  10 
of  unhulled  sweet-clover  seed  per  acre,  for  the  reason 
that,  at  any  time  of  the  year  you  may  sow  it,  there 
is  only  a  part  of  it  that  will  germinate  the  same 
season  it  is  sown,  the  rest  not  starting  till  the  next 
season.  I  have  sown  at  least  25  or  30  acres,  and  put 
on  not  less  than  8  to  10  Ibs.  of  unhulled  seed  and 
sowed  it  early  in  the  spring  too,  and  I  have  never 
been  able  to  get  a  good  stand  the  same  spring,  and 
the  next  spring  the  rest  of  the  seed  would  come  up, 
and  for  another  year  I  would  still  have  only  a  partial 
stand,  so  you  see  that  leaves  me  until  the  third  year 
before  I  can  have  a  perfect  stand,  as  the  seeding  the 
second  year  seeds  itself. 

I  believe  we  should  sow  not  less  than  20  Ibs.  of 
unhulled  seed,  or  12  to  15  of  the  hulled  per  acre;  then 
you  may  rest  assured  you  will  get  a  stand. 

I  have  sown  several  thousand  acres  of  alfalfa,  and 
the  ones  that  are  successful  in  getting  a  stand  are 
those  that  are  not  afraid  to  put  on  at  least  15  to  20 
Ibs.  per  acre,  and  then  your  ground  needs  to  be  in 
perfect  order.  I  sowed  about  three  acres  last  spring, 
9 


and  put  on  about  20  Ibs.  of  the  unhulled  seed,  and 
I  got  a  fine  stand.  Enough  will  come  up  from  the 
seed  again  this  spring  to  give  me  a  good  stand  next 
spring.  R.  L.  SNODGRASS. 

Augusta,  Kan.,  Feb  9,  1909. 

SWEET   CLOVER   AS   A  FOOD  FOR   STOCK. 

I 

Last  week,  seeing  in  the  cornfield  sweet  clover 
over  two  feet  high  in  bloom  I  thought  of  a  writer 
who  said  it  would  not  grow  in  cultivated  fields.  The 
large  plant  which  I  send  in  a  separate  inclosure  has 
grown  from  seed  which  has  germinated  since  July  29, 
when  the  corn  was  last  cultivated.  I  also  send  two 
young  plants  which  have  grown  from  seed  since  our 
first  rain,  Oct.  14.  The  whole  field  was  plowed  late 
last  spring,  and  that  part  which  is  now  covered  with 
a  dense  growth  of  young  clover,  being  above  the  irri- 
gation line,  was  not  planted.  This  part  of  the  field 
was  free  from  clover  last  year,  and  the  seed  must 
have  lain  dormant  two  years.  I  consider  it  a  good 
plow-under  crop.  Today  I  counted  over  100  nodules 
on  one  plant.  This  coming  season  I  hope  to  save 
enough  seed  to  plant  ten  acres,  and  the  following 
spring  plow  it  under  for  corn-planting.  Last  week  I 
gave  some  sweet  clover  to  a  pen  of  young  fatting 
hogs  which  had  never  eaten  any.  They  were  all  very 
fond  of  it.  Some  horses  and  cattle  do  not  relish  it 
ht  first,  but,  like  human  beings,  have  to  acquire  an 
appetite  for  some  foods.  I  well  remember  my  first 
attempt  to  eat  an  olive.  Now  you  can  scarcely  feed 
me  too  many.  If  you  have  a  pet  Jersey  cow  you 
Wish  to  have  love  you,  and  give  you  a  good  quality 
of  rich  milk,  give  her  a  good  feed  of  sweet  clover 
at  milking  time;  but  too  heavy  feeding  with  it  will 
give  the  milk  a  peculiar  flavor. 

Descanso,  Cal.,  Dec.  5,  1908.  E.  P.  ST.  JOHN. 

SWEET    CLOVER. 

,  For  several  days  I  have  been  staking  our  cow  out 
in  the  alfalfa  pasture  in  order  to  give  her  a  little 
green  food.  It  would  hardly  be  safe,  you  know,  to  let 
her  run  loose  and  eat  her  fill.  Yesterday  I  tied  her 

10 


to  the  fence.  There  is  a  sprinkling  of  sweet  clover 
all  along  this  edge  of  the  field.  What  did  the  mis- 
guided creature  do  but  pick  out  and  devour  every 
stalk  of  sweet  clover  within  reach  before  she  would 
touch  any  of  the  alfalfa!  Surely  she  ought  to  have 
known  better!  Those  who  hold  that  sweet  clover 
is  not  a  fit  food  for  stock  are  invited  to  labor  with 
her  and  convince  her  of  the  error  of  her  ways. 
where  it  was  unmolested.  j.  A.  GREEN. 

Grand  Junction,  Col.,  June  1,  1906. 

SWEET  CLOVER;  ITS  VALUE  AS  A  FERTILIZER. 

I  have  about  six  acres  of  sweet  clover,  not  as  thick 
as  I  wish,  but  I  hope  to  see  it  better  in  the  future, 
and  I  cut  the  sweet  clover  along  the  road  by  my 
place. 

There  may  be  States  in  which  sweet  clover  is 
classed  as  a  noxious  weed,  and  so  that  it  would  be 
unlawful  to  raise  it,  even  on  our  own  land.  If  this 
is  the  case,  it  would  not  look  well  to  advise  raising 
it  there.  I  have  found  that  sweet  clover  is  worth 
more  for  enriching  the  soil  than  it  is  for  honey. 

I  dug  a  few  potatoes  yesterday  where  there  was 
sweet  clover  last  year,  and  found  double  the  yield 
out  of  the  same  number  of  hills  on  the  same  soil. 
Where  the  sweet  clover  grew,  there  was  no  manure 
last  year;  and  where  the  sweet  clover  was  not,  I  had 
a  coat  of  manure  last  season.  Along  the  railroad 
and  highways  sweet  clover  does  not  last  more  than 
a  few  years.  It  will  grow  where  no  plant  will,  and 
then  other  plants  take  its  place.  I  have  in  mind  a 
spot  where  the  soil  was  removed  for  an  embankment 
— 3  or  4  feet  of  top  soil,  some  one  sowed  sweet  clover 
there,  and  after  a  few  years  of  sweet  clover  other 
grasses  have  taken  its  place.  The  sweet  clover  pro- 
duces the  humus  to  bring  about  the  result,  and  this 
spoils  the  soil  for  its  own  growth. 

A.  CHAS.  ARMSTRONG. 

Warner,  N.  Y.,  Aug.  17,  1907. 

Score  another  for  sweet  clover.  The  honey  yield 
was  very  light  here  in  the  fore  part  of  the  season; 
but  in  August  the  sweet  clover  began  to  give  down, 
11 


and  since  then  some  localities  have  secured  a  very 
good  crop,  a  few  a  really  exceptional  crop  of  nice 
honey  from  that  source.  At  this  date,  Sept.  13,  the 
flow  still  continues  good. 

Dr.  Miller  is  right  in  saying  that  sweet  clover  is 
not  a  desirable  lawn  grass,  and  the  editor  is  probably 
right  in  the  belief  that  it  could  hardly  get  started  on 
a  lawn  that  was  properly  cared  for.  It  is  re- 
markable, though,  what  a  dwarf  can  be  made  of  the 
plant  by  close  pruning.  I  have  seen  places  where 
the  roadside  cattle  had  kept  it  closely  nipped,  where 
the  ground  was  covered  with  a  close  mat  of  it  not 
over  two  or  three  inches  high,  yet  blooming  pro- 
fusely. A  lawn  of  it  kept  in  that  condition  would  be 
really  pretty.  But  one  would  hardly  recognize  it  as 
a  relation  of  the  six  or  eight  foot  stuff  that  grew 
where  it  was  unmolested.  j.  A.  GREEN. 

Grand  Junction,  Colo.,  Oct.  15,  '06. 

THE  EXPERIENCE  OF  A  FARMER  WHO  GROWS  IT  FOR  HIS 

STOCK;  HIS  CATTLE  WILL  TAKE  IT  IN  PREFERENCE 

TO  OTHER  CLOVERS. 

It  is  a  common  thing  to  hear  people  say  that  noth- 
ing will  eat  sweet  clover.  Such  people  are  either 
drawing  on  their  imagination  or  their  experience  is 
limited.  Now,  I  do  not  say  that  stock  will  eat  sweet 
clover  when  there  is  plenty  of  grass,  but  my  calves 
did  that  very  thing  this  summer,  and  kept  it  eaten 
down  all  fall.  To  try  sweet  clover  further  as  a 
forage-plant  I  turned  my  calves  into  a  ten-acre 
field  of  sweet  clover  with  two  acres  of  English  clover 
on  one  side  of  the  field.  I  fully  believe  they  liked 
the  sweet  clover  as  well  as  the  English. 

There  is  no  use  for  any  one  to  say  that  nothing 
will  eat  sweet  clover,  for  I  have  seen  my  calves 
eating  it;  and  when  I  turned  them  into  that  ten- 
acre  field  they  quit  coming  up  for  their  feed.  It  is 
now  Nov.  19.  My  sweet  clover  is  still  green,  and  we 
have  had  freezing  weather  here.  The  ground  had 
been  frozen  hard. 

There  are  three  times  in  a  year  when  sweet  clover 
is  a  good  forage-plant^-early  spring,  before  grass 
comes  on;  midsummer  after  grass  dries  up,  and  late 

12 


fall.  I  am  not  sowing  sweet  clover  alone  for  bees, 
but  am  sowing  for  both  bees  and  stock;  and  I  can 
say  from  experience  that  they  both  do  well  on  it. 
After  this  I  expect  to  sow  my  thinnest  land  to  sweet 
clover,  as  I  believe  it  to  be  a  great  land-builder. 

There  is  one  thing  more  that  I  wish  to  mention 
about  sweet  clover.  I  fully  believe  that  the  bark 
on  second-year's  sweet  clover  will  make  the  best  of 
ropes. 

Velpen,  Ind.,  Nov.  19.  BY  W.  T.  DAVI^ON. 

[The  following,  which  tells  how  sweet  clover  be- 
haves in  Montour  Co.,  Pa.,  from  the  American  Agri- 
culturist, is  along  the  same  line:] 

I  have  been  reading  several  articles  in  American  Agricul- 
turist on  the  value  of  sweet  clover,  Melilotus  alba.  Some 
writers  say  it  is  not  eaten  by  stock.  Others  say  it  makes 
good  hay  when  cut  and  stored  in  layers  between  layers  of 
other  hay.  We  have  it  growing  in  every  by-place  along  the 
roadside,  on  stone  piles  and  in  cultivated  fields.  It  will 
grow  where  no  other  plant  can  live.  On  poor,  barren  land 
it  grows  3  to  6  feet  high. 

I  selected  one  stalk  having  13  branches  measuring  4  to  8 
feet  long,  grown  from  a  single  seed.  The  root  of  this  stalk 
was  3  feet  4  inches  long  with  large  nodules.  It  starts  to 
grow  in  the  spring  earlier  than  any  of  th^  other  forage 
plants.  By  April  10  to  15  it  is  from  4  to  8  inches  high, 
and  eaten  with  relish  by  cattle  and  colts.  Our  cattle  eat  it 
all  summer ;  but  when  allowed  to  grow  it  soon  becomes 
woody.  The  cattle  then  eat  only  the  blossom  ends  of  the 
branches  It  is  not  easily  cured  for  hay.  It  is  very  sappy ; 
and,  before  it  cures,  the  leaves  all  drop  off,  leaving  only  the 
stem. 

I  have  a  piece  of  sweet-corn  and  pumpkins  growing  now 
in  an  old  peach  orchard.  The  ground  was  very  poor,  and  for 
three  years  it  has  been  covered  with  sweet  clover.  I  re- 
moved the  old  stalks  that  grew  the  preceding  year,  and 
plowed  it  May  16.  The  clover  was  then  15  inches  high, 
and  three  horses  could  scarcely  turn  it.  It  lay  until  June 
21,  when  I  marked  and  planted  it.  The  sod  rotted  com- 
pletely, and  the  corn  proved  the  best  I  ever  grew. 

M.  S.  BOND. 

Articles  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Amos. 

INCREASING  THE  PASTURAGE  BY  SOWING 
SWEET  CLOVER. 

THE  WHITE  AND  YELLOW  VARIETIES. 

Last  October  there  appeared  in  GLEANINGS  an  illus- 
trated article  by  John  Bodenschatz  telling  how  much 

13 


he  had  increased  his  honey  yield  by  scattering  sweet 
clover  seed  on  waste  land  in  his  vicinity.  GLEANINGS 
called  for  a  show  of  hands  from  those  who  could  give 
testimony  along  that  line.  My  own  experience  is 
similar  to  his,  in  a  smaller  way,  as  I  have  fewer 
bees.  My  yield  of  honey  is  much  greater,  and  the 
quality  of  the  honey  is  very  much  improved  since 
sweet  clover  has  become  an  appreciable  factor  in  .the 
honey  crop. 

Mr..B.  did  not  say  what  kind  of  sweet  clover  he 
had;  but  it  is  not  difficult  to  infer  that  his  is  the 
white  kind,  since  he  spoke  of  its  following  white 
clover.  That  is  the  kind  to  have  for  those  who  want 
it  to  follow  white  clover.  There  is  so  little  white 
clover  here  that  it  cuts  no  figure  in  honey  production, 
so  I  have  been  busy  every  spring  increasing  my 
acreage  of  the  yellow  kind.  I  grow  that  instead  of 
white  clover.  The  first  few  blossoms  usually  open 
near  the  end  of  May,  and  it  yields  freely  all  through 
June.  It  slackens  up  in  its  blooming  then;  but  after 
maturing  a  big  crop  of  seed  it  begins  to  bloom  again. 
Putting  the  time  a  month  later,  one  might  say  the 
same  of  the  white  as  I  have  said  of  the  yellow. 
The  bee-keeffer  here  who  has  abundance  of  these  two 
clovers  is  practically  independent  of  any  other  honey 
flora,  since  they  supplement  each  other,  and  together 
yield  honey  until  killed  off  late  by  freezing  weather. 

The  honey  obtained  here  from  sweet  clover  is 
line,  and  I  have  no  trouble  at  all  in  selling  it  at  top 
prices,  both  comb  and  extracted.  I  have  these  clo- 
vers growing  on  my  own  farm  here  around  the 
orchard,  and  wherever  there  is  a  piece  of  ground 
available.  And  I  have  also  some  flourishing  patches 
along  the  roadsides. 

Sweet  clover  bears  transplanting  well  if  taken  in 
early  spring.  I  like  to  start  out  armed  with  a  spade 
and  a  pailful  of  plants  as  well  as  seed  when  I  try 
to  establish  it  in  new  places.  I  have  spent  hours  that 
way,  and  thought  the  time  well  spent. 

Comstock,  Neb.,  July  1,  1906.        MRS.  A.  L.  AMOS. 

[Our  own  observation  corroborates  the  above,  to 
the  effect  that  yellow  sweet  clover  is  three  or  four 


weeks  earlier  than  the  white.  Right  under  our  office 
window  are  some  thrifty  sweet-clover  plants  two  or 
three  feet  high.  While  the  white  shows  no  blossom- 
buds  at  all  a  stock  of  yellow  is  in  full  bloom — A.  I. 
R.] 

SWEET  CLOVER. 

WHY  IS  NOT  THE  YELLOW  VARIETY  MOKE  WIDELY  KNOWN? 

The  little  I  have  written  in  GLEANINGS  started  a 
small  avalanche  of  letters  of  inquiry  to  which  I  have 
been  trying  to  do  justice.  Some  of  these  letters  were 
quite  interesting.  For  instance,  I  got  one  from  Cali- 
fornia, in  which  the  writer  said: 

Some  25  years  ago  I  was  engaged  in  the  hardware  and 
seed  business  at  Paola,  Kan.,  and  for  some  customer  I  wrote 
to  an  eastern  seed-house  for  a  little  each  of  the  white  and 
yellow  Bokhara  clover.  They  were  identical  in  habit,  but 
I  thought  the  yellow  contained  more  nectar,  as  the  bees 
were  almost  crazy  for  it,  and  it  bloomed  from  early  till 
late.  I  now  conclude  that  this  is  the  same  as  sweet  clover 
referred  to.  Do  you  know? 

I  wonder  what  became  of  that  yellow  sweet  clover 
started  so  long  ago  near  Paola,  Kan.  I  wonder  how 
it  comes  that  the  white  sweet  clover  is  known  all 
over  and  the  yellow  is  not. 

Its  great  merit  was  recognized  in  some  quarters 
years  ago. 

A  very  interesting  letter  from  the  late  Mrs.  L. 
Harrison  was  read  by  Mr.  York  at  the  Illinois  State 
Bee-Keepers'  convention,  held  in  Chicago  in  1896. 
She  said  of  Melilotus  ojficinalis,  "This  is  well  known, 
and  gaining  in  reputation  as  a  forage-plant  and  for 
bee-pasture." 

When  D.  A.  Jones,  of  Canada,  attended  the  sessions 
of  the  North  American  Bee-kepers'  Association  he 
advocated  the  merits  of  what  he  called  Bokhara  clo- 
ver, first,  last,  and  all  the  time.  Prof.  Cook  took  a 
plant  in  his  hand  that  Mr.  Jones  brought  with  him, 
and,  standing  up  smilingly,  said,  "Look  at  its  root. 
Its  only  sweet  clover/*  So  it  was:  but  it  was 
Melilotus  officinalis — the  yellow  variety.  See  Ameri- 
can Bee  Journal,  1897,  page  34.  Ten  years  ago! 

15 


Why  has  it  not  made  greater  headway  to  recognition? 
That's  what  puzzles  me. 

I  have  looked  in  many  "bee-books,"  manuals  of 
bee-keeping,  to  find  among  the  honeyplants  Melilotus 
alba  alone,  instead  of  being  accompanied  by  its  twin- 
sister,  Melilotus  ojficinalis.  It  is  mentioned  in  the 
ABC  but  hardly  gets  justice.  I  confidently  believe 
the  next  edition  will  have  more  to  say. 

I  want  to  see  merit  find  recognition.  My  experience 
with  the  yellow  sweet  clover  is  that  it  is  far  ahead 
of  the  white  as  a  forage-plant.  The  white  does  not 
hold  its  own  when  stock  feed  on  it,  but  the  yellow 
does.  Dr.  Gandy,  of  Richardson  Co.,  this  State,  has 
had  yellow  sweet  clover  for  many  years,  and  at- 
tributes to  it  much  of  his  success  as  a  honey-pro- 
ducer. Mrs.  Lambrigger,  of  Knox  Co.,  Neb.,  wrote  of 
it  with  enthusiasm  some  ten  years  ago. 

Comstock,  Neb.,  May  1,  1907.     MRS.  A.  L.  AMOS. 

HARVESTING    SWEET-CLOVER    SEED. 

When,  in  my  enthusiasm,  I  commenced  to  write  of 
yellow  sweet  clover  as  a  honey-plant  it  was  without 
the  slightest  intention  of  going  into  the  seed  busi- 
ness; but  so  many  inquiries  came  to  hand  asking  if 
I  could  supply  seed  or  tell  where  it  might  be  ob- 
tained, that  I  began  to  study  whether  I  could  not  do 
something  toward  supplying  the  demand.  I  hit  upon 
a  plan  of  harvesting  the  seed  in  a  small  way,  which 
may  be  of  interest  to  those  who  would  do  likewise. 

I  have  the  clover  cut  with  a  mowing-machine  when 
the  seed  has  partly  ripened.  I  have  this  cutting  done 
after  a  rain,  or  in  the  morning  when  the  dew  is  on  it, 
as  the  seed  does  not  shake  off  so  ^easily  when  wet. 
It  is  allowed  to  lie  for  a  few  days  to  finish  ripening, 
when  the  girls  and  I  "go  for  it"  as  shown  in  the  pic- 
ture. 

We  spread  the  buggy  canvas  on  the  ground,  and 
pile  on  the  clover.  We  do  this  in  the  morning  when 
it  is  wet,  and  allow  it  to  lie  till  late  afternoon,  when 
it  is  thoroughly  dry  and  yields  readily  to  the  feet 
and  sticks  of  the  young  harvesters.  After  a  vigorous 
pounding  and  tramping  we  find  from  ten  to  twenty 

17 


pounds  of  seed  on  our  canvas.  We  sift  it  twice  and 
put  it  in  a  sack.  Our  work  with  the  clover  stretches 
over  a  week  or  more,  and  we  have  no  very  large 
quantity  then,  but  enough  to  supply  many  bee- 
keepers who  want  only  a  little  to  try  it. 

Jf  one  wants  a  clover-field  to  be  good  year  after 
year  as  I  do,  I  consider  it  very  important  to  remove 
the  greater  part  of  the  seed.  If  this  is  not  done  it 
sows  itself  too  thickly.  In  harvesting  as  we  do,  there 
is  always  enough  left  to  seed  the  ground  nicely  for 
another  year. 

Comstock,  Neb.,  Nov.  15, 1907.    MBS.  A.  L.  AMOS. 

SWEET   CLOVER. 

HOW    THIS    HONEY-PRODUCING   PLANT   GROWS    ON    THE 
BANKS  OF  THE  CHICAGO  DRAINAGE  CANAL. 

Sweet  clover,  of  the  white  variety,  is  found  grow- 
ing in  such  profusion  on  the  towering  banks  of  the 
Chicago  drainage  canal,  between  Chicago  and  Joliet, 
that  apiarists  are  much  encouraged  in  their  at- 
tempts to  produce  honey  in  paying  quantities. 

Before  this  great  sanitary  canal  was  built,  a  large 
amount  of  wild  clover  grew  in  the  Des  Plaines  Valley. 
It  all  but  covered  the  right  of  way  of  the  railroads 
traversing  the  region,  and  spread  out  to  a  wide  ex- 
panse of  prairie  land.  When  the  constructing  gangs 
with  their  ponderous  machinery  of  all  kinds  moved 
down  the  valley,  digging  out  the  earth  and  stone,  and 
piling  it  mountain  high  on  one  side  or  the  other, 
much  of  the  clover  growth  was  dug  out  or  covered 
up. 

Within  the  last  few  years,  however,  it  has  been 
noticed  that  the  clover  began  appearing  on  the  rough 
banks  until  at  this  time  there  are  hundreds  of  acres 
of  it.  When  the  bloom  comes,  the  bees  get  busy,  and, 
as  may  be  conjectured,  they  lay  in  a  rich  store  of  as 
fine  a  product  as  may  be  found  in  any  milk-and-honey 
land  in  the  world. 

The  accompanying  pictures  were  made  at  Romeo, 
Lxinois,  and  near  the  home  of  John  J.  Keig,  a  poultry- 
honey  man.  He  breeds  and  raises  Buff  Plymouth 

20 


Rocks,  and  also  owns  ten  colonies  of  bees,  from  the 
work  of  which  he  recently  sold  500  pounds  of  honey. 
Other  property  owners  in  the  valley  keep  bees  that 
nnd  the  rich  bloom  on  the  canal  banks  and  in  the  ad- 
jacent territory.  Quite  recently  the  drainage  board 
had  its  attention  called  to  the  increase  in  the  clover 
acreage  within  the  sanitary  district,  which  by  this 
time  embraces  260  square  miles  of  territory,  and  no 
one  at  this  time  was  able  to  say  that  the  great  cor- 
poration may  not  turn  to  producing  honey  within  a 
bailiwick  in  which  by  this  time  it  has  expended  $53,- 
000,000.  J.  L.  GRAFF. 

Ravenswood,  111.,  August  1,  1908. 


On  my  return  from  California  in  the  fall  of  1903, 
I  was  greatly  impressed  with  the  piece  of  engineering 
as  planned  and  carried  out  for  that  great  canal. 
"Vvell,  there  are  places  where  the  soil,  stones,  and 
gravel  are  piled  up,  to  get  it  out  of  the  way,  in  heaps 
that  almost  rival  in  size  the  mountains  of  California. 
At  the  time  of  my  trip,  railroads  were  constructed 
for  the  purpose  of  carrying  this  refuse  material 
wherever  it  was  wanted  for  filling  in  for  railroading 
and  other  work.  But  I  suppose  it  will  be  many  years 
before  these  "hills  and  mountains"  are  entirely  re- 
moved out  of  the  way.  The  fact  that  sweet  clover 
will  take  root  and  grow,  and  get  sustenance  from  the 
air  on  such  miscellaneous  soils  as  those  taken  out  at 
a  great  depth  in  the  ground,  is  an  additional  proof 
of  the  great  worth  that  it  may  have  in  making  the 
most  unpromising  soil  productive.  This  reminds  me 
that  the  growth  of  sweet  clover  in  the  suburbs  of  To- 
ledo is  this  year  just  wonderful.  When  the  farming 
community  all  get  to  understand  the  way  in  which 
this  plant  does  "missionary  work"  in  restoring  poor 
soils,  we  shall  recognize  what  a  wonderful  gift  to 
agriculture  is  this  luxuriant  sweet  clover  that  has 
been  so  many  times  called  by  thoughtless  people  a 
"noxious  weed."  A.  I.  ROOT. 

August  1,  1908- 

21 


SWEET    CLOVER    BUTTER,    ETC. 

I  have  fed  sweet  clover  and  sweet  clover  hay  at 
various  times  and  for  various  periods  during  the  past 
ten  years  or  more,  and  I  never  noticed  any  injurious 
effects  from  it  whatever.  In  fact,  at  one  time  when 
we  fed  our  three  Jerseys  for  several  weeks  on  nothing 
but  sweet-clover  hay  and  bran,  we  decided,  according 
to  my  recollection,  that  it  made  a  little  nicer  butter 
than  anything  else.  At  any  rate,  private  customers 
gladly  took  it  at  the  highest  market  price.  The  idea 
of  adding  it  to  other  varieties  of  hay  is  doubtless 
good;  but  it  should  be  done  at  the  time  the  hay  is 
made  and  stacked  away.  I  wish  some  of  those  who 
are  skeptical  about  the  value  of  sweet-clover  hay 
could  have  watched  my  horses  several  weeks  ago. 
We  had  cut  a  small  quantity  of  sweet  clover  for  hay, 
and  put  it  into  the  barn  alongside  of  the  old  alfalfa 
hay  in  which  the  horses  had  been  living  all  winter. 
A  few  days  later  the  young  man  who  had  been  doing 
the  feeding  came  to  me  and  said:  "That  sweet  clover 
makes  fine  hay.  The  horses  like  it  better  than 
alfalfa.  I  have  been  trying  to  get  them  to  use  up  the 
old  nay  by  mixing  the  new  hay  with  it,  but  they  will 
hunt  out  every  bit  of  the  sweet  clover  before  they 
will  eat  any  of  the  old  hay." 

J.  A.  GREEN. 

Boulder,  Col.,  July  15,  1907. 

SWEET  CLOVER;  THE  RESULTS  OF  SOME  EXPERIMENTS  IN 
GROWING  IT  ON  LOOSE  AND  HARD  SOIL. 

I  noticed  on  p.  1048,  of  last  year,  that  some  one 
thinks  sweet  clover  will  grow  on  cultivated  ground 
the  same  as  anywhere  else.  Last  spring  I  purchased 
75  Ibs.  of  white  unhulled  sweet-clover  seed,  prepared 
my  ground  (about  five  acres)  and  sowed  early  in 
spring.  It  came  up  nicely,  and  it  seemed  as  if  there 
would  be  a  fine  stand;  but  as  the  summer  went  by, 
the  clover  gradually  disappeared;  and  by  fall  there 
was  scarcely  a  stalk  to  be  found.  I  think  that,  on 
account  of  the  ground  being  loose,  it  perished;  for 
during  the  time  there  was  very  little  rain. 

During  a  very  wet  spring  and  summer  it  might 

22 


do  all  right  on   loose  ground;    but  in  a  dry  time   I 
thinK  it  would  be  a  complete  failure. 

I  now  have  several  hives  of  bees,  and  I  wanted 
tue  clover  for  my  bees,  and  also  while  it  was  for  bees 
it  was  for  my  ground  also.  As  a  soiler  it  has  no 
equal.  The  roots  penetrate  very  deeply;  and  as  it  is 
a  biennial  it  dies  every  two  years  and  leaves  the 
roots  to  decay  in  the  ground,  making  it  very  fertile. 
Curing  the  same  year  I  sowed  some  on  hard  clay 
ground,  where  nothing  else  would  grow,  and,  to  my 
surprise,  have  a  good  stand. 

I  find  that,  as  soon  as  it  takes  on  poor  clay  soil, 
it  soon  makes  it  fertile,  and  other  grass  soon  crowds 
it  out,  as  the  young  plants  can  easily  be  smothered 
out. 

As  a  forage-plant  it  is  very  good.  My  horses  and 
cows  are  very  fond  of  it  in  the  spring.  I  sowed  a 
small  patch  a  few  years  ago  for  my  bees,  thinking 
nothing  would  eat  it;  but  my  cows  kept  it  close  to  the 
ground,  a"hd  not  a  stalk  was  allowed  to  bloom. 

E.  S.  HUDSON. 

Bedford,  Ky.,  June  1,  1907. 

SWEET   CLOVER   IN    THE    SAN    LUIS    VALLEY,    COLORADO. 

The  pasture  problem  (for  pigs)  has  been  solved.  Sweet 
clover,  the  common  roadside  and  ditchside  pest,  makes  a 
fine  hog-pasture.  When  it  is  small  and  innocent,  hogs  like 
it.  As  it  gets  older,  like  some  folks,  its  nature  gets  tough 
and  bitter,  and  nothing  likes  it.  Therefore,  plant  it  for  your 
hogs;  and  as  soon  as  it  is  six  inches  high,  cut  it  down. with 
a  mower  close  to  the  ground.  It  will  keep  more  hogs  to  the 
acre  than  anything  else ;  grows  anywhere,  in  rocks,  swamps, 
wet  ground,  dry  ground,  alkali  ground,  cinders,  or  anything, 
and  is  the  greatest  ground-enrichener  of  all  the  legumes. 
C.  A.  LYMAN,  in  The  Breeders'  Gazette. 

SWEET   CLOVER   FOR   PIGS    AND   LAMBS. 

[The  evidences  of  the  value  of  sweet  clover  for 
many  purposes  continue  to  accumulate.  The  latest 
pronouncement  in  its  favor  is  by  the  editor  of  The 
Farm  Press  who  has  recently  paid  a  visit  to  the 
celebrated  San  Luis  Valley  in  Colorado  where  are 
raised  the  finest  hogs  and  lambs  in  the  United  States. 
What  he  saw  is  calculated  to  cause  the  people  who 

23 


class  sweet  clover  as  a  "weed"  to  sit  up  and  take 
notice.     Please  note  carefully  what  he  says.] 

Alfalfa  has  an  altitude  limit  which  interferes  with  its 
cultivation  in  some  places,  as  it  does  not  succeed  well  above 
6000  feet ;  but  alfalfa  has  a  fm  t  cousin  known  all  over  the 
United  States  by  the  name  of  sweet  clover,  and  these  high- 
altitude  farmers  have  found  out  that  sweet  clover  doesn't 
discriminate  between  different  altitudes.  One  man  declared 
that  sweet  clover  will  grow  way  up  to  the  timber-line  and  it 
will  make  good  feed  too,  if  properly  managed. 

Sweet  clover  gets  very  woody  when  old,  but  these  men 
pasture  it  down,  and  when  it  gets  the  start  on  the  hogs 
they  put  the  mowing  machines  on  with  the  finger-board 
tilted  up  and  cut  it  back  to  three  or  four  inches  high.  This 
gives  it  a  fresh  start,  and  the  pigs  fatten  on  the  young  and 
tender  growth.  The  San  Luis  Valley  seems  to  have  taken 
the  lead  in  lamb  feeding.  Seven  years  ago  an  experiment 
was  tried  in  feeding  600 ;  the  experiment  was  successful, 
and  the  next  year  about  1200  were  fed.  These  were  in- 
creased the  third  year  to  12,000,  and  every  year  there- 
after until  1905,  when  the  number  was  estimated  at  540,- 
000  ;  but  this  proved  too  many,  at  least  the  market  at  that 
time  was  not  sufficient  to  absorb  such  a  great  quantity  at 
paying  prices  and  some  of  the  feeders  who  didn't  understand 
the  business  made  a  failure  of  it.  The  past  season  about 
320,000  were  fed  and  marketed  with  success. 

The  combination  of  alfalfa  or  sweet  clover  with  peas 
works  well  with  breeding  hogs,  because  the  little  pigs,  as 
soon  as  they  are  able  to  eat,  get  the  kind  of  feed  that  is 
best  for  them. 

SWEET    CLOVER    FOR    PIGS — MORE    ABOUT    IT. 

We  clip  the  following  from  the  Kansas  Farmer  of 
August  22,  1907: 

I  should  like  information  on  sweet  clover.  Will  it  do 
well  if  sown  in  September  in  Oklahoma?  Where  can  I  get 
the  seed?  My  land  will  not  raise  alfalfa,  and  I  desire  to 
get  a  good  plant  for  hog  pasture.  WM.  QUEEN. 

Woodward  Co.,   Oklahoma. 

Sweet  clover  can  be  sown  in  the  same  manner  as  alfalfa, 
about  the  last  week  in  August  or  the  first  week  in  Septem- 
ber, and  the  seed-bed  should  be  prepared  as  you  would  pre- 
pare a  seed-bed  for  alfalfa,  by  thoroughly  disking  wheat 
or  oats  ground  which  is  comparatively  free  from  weeds. 
The  disking  should  be  done  as  soon  after  Harvest  as  possi- 
ble, and  the  land  disked  or  harrowed  at  frequent  intervals, 
or  after  each  rain,  to  conserve  soil  moisture  and  to  prepare 
a  mellow,  firm  seed-bed. 

Many  farmers  who  have  not  been  successful  with  alfalfa 
have  grown  sweet  clover  for  hog  pasture,  keeping  the  clover 
clipped  off  so  that  it  does  not  become  hard  and  woody, 

24 


with  the  exception  of  one  crop  each  year,  which  is  allowed 
to  grow  up  and  seed  to  furnish  plants  for  the  next  year's 
crop.  When  grown  in  this  manner  sweet  clover  has  proven 
fairly  satisfactory ;  but  it  should  never  be  grown  for  hog- 
pasture  where  alfalfa  does  well.  Any  reliable  seed-house 
in  Kansas  or  Oklahoma  can  furnish  you  sweet-clover  seed. 

G.   E.   CALL. 

SWEET  CLOVER;  LET  THE  BEE-KEEPERS  GET  BUSY  AND 
SHOW  THAT  IT  IS  NOT  A  NOXIOUS  WEED. 

I  am  feeding  our  horse  on  sweet-clover  hay  that, 
witn  permission  of  section  foreman,  I  gathered  off 
from  a  railroad  right-of-way  week  before  last,  after 
the  track  men  had  cut  it  down  several  days  before. 
When  I  hauled  it  into  the  barn  the  horse  would  not 
eat  it;  but  after  it  lay  in  the  barn  a  week  he  took 
readily  to  it.  I  saved  a  quarter  to  half  a  ton  and 
wish  I  had  saved  more.  I  have  saved  sweet-clover 
hay  for  years  for  horse.  I  think  that  if  bee-keepers 
would  take  more  pains  to  use  it  as  it  is  cut  down 
along  the  railroads  and  highways  they  would  find  it 
well  worth  saving  and  sweet  clover  soon  would  be 
more  popular  with  the  farmers.  If  bee-keepers  would 
experiment  more  in  curing  and  using  it  more  farmers 
would  be  planting  it.  In  one  instance  a  former  road- 
master  took  lots  of  pains  to  dig  up  and  destroy  a 
little  of  it  along  the  street  at  the  same  time  saying 
lots  against  it.  I  circulated  word  among  his  neigh- 
bors that  I  would  give  the  first  one  ten  dollars  who 
would  show  me  an  instance  where  it  damaged  a 
farmer  any  and  no  one  came  after  the  money.  The 
plant  is  condemned  through  ignorance  and  through 
tnoughtlessness.  Considerable  good  but  coarse  hay  is 
left  to  waste  that  would  save  some  one  some  money 
as  a  feed  for  horses  and  cows.  Every  bee-keeper  who 
is  a  farmer  can  experiment. 

ED  HAINES. 

Bedford,  Ohio,  Sept.  15,  1906. 

MOKE  ABOUT  SWEET  CLOVER;    ITS  VALUE  TO  FARMERS,  ETC. 

About  20  years  ago  I  became  interested  in  bees 
through  an  advertisement  of  A.  I.  Root  in  the  Farm 
Journal.  I  got  the  A  B  C  of  Bee  Culture,  and  that 

25 


is  the  first  I  knew  of  sweet  clover.  I  found  at  that 
time  in  an  orchard  on  our  own  farm,  about  80  rods 
from  home,  a  nice  patch,  probably  planted  there  by 
an  old  settler.  I  now  live  just  across  the  road  from 
that  orchard,  and  that  patch  is  there  yet.  The  land 
is  farmed  all  around  that  orchard,  but  not  a  plant  of 
that  sweet  clover  can  I  find  in  the  field  ten  steps 
away,  without  any  pains  whatever  to  eradicate  it 
except  to  till  the  land  as  usual. 

A  few  years  ago  many  of  my  neighbors  were  afraid 
of  it,  but  now  they  know  better.  One  of  them  asked 
me  if  I  could  sell  him  half  a  bushel  of  the  seed  last 
fall,  as  he  wished  to  seed  a  little  patch  of  bottom 
erovmd  where  the  river  had  washed  away  the  soil. 
Several  of  my  neighbors  have  begun  to  sow  sweet 
clover  on  low  ground  where  the  river  washes  badly. 
About  two  miles  from  here  there  is  lots  of  sweet 
clover  along  the  roadside.  Near  that  place  are  12 
acres  of  bottom  land  that  was  made  almost  worthless 
by  high  water  sweeping  the  soil  off.  An  enterprising 
young  farmer  bought  this  land  at  about  half  price, 
he  having  noticed  that  the  rains  had  washed  the 
sweet-clover  seed  from  along  the  road  above,  down 
across  this  field,  and  it  had  become  thickly  set  to 
sweet  clover.  This  field  had  lain  idle  for  one  year 
then;  and  as  the  high  water  came  down  again  the 
next  spring  this  sweet  clover  caught  lots  of  the 
sediment,  and  sweet  clover  and  all  was  plowed  un- 
der. That  land  is  now  good  for  60  to  75  bushels  of 
corn  every  favorable  year.  That  one  transaction 
did  more  to  gain  friends  for  sweet  clover  than  ever 
so  many  arguments. 

About  eight  years  ago  I  lived  in  Henry  Co.,  111.,  and 
I  cut  and  put  up  a  small  stack  of  first  year's  growth 
of  sweet  clover,  and  in  thg  winter  the  cows  seemed 
to  relish  it  as  well  as  red  clover,  and  much  better 
than  timothy. 

This  spring  I  tried  a  little  experiment.  I  had  dug 
a  well  57  feet  deep.  The  last  dirt  was  dumped  in 
one  pile.  This  was  blue  clay  and  soapstone.  I  then 
went  and  dug  up  a  plant  of  sweet  clover  and  trans- 
planted on  this  pile.  That  plant  grew  as  thrifty  as 

26 


any,  and  blossomed,  and  bore  an  abundance  of  seed. 
Bees  were  seen  on  the  blossoms  for  several  weeks. 
This  proves  that  sweet  clover  is  one  of  the  most 
wonderful  nitrogen-gathering  plants  in  existence.  1 
should  like  to  ask  if  sand  vetch  will  grow  on  such 
soil.  Some  time  ago  I  saw  an  account  where  a  jar 
of  soil  was  analyzed,  and  then  a  soy  bean  planted  in 
it.  After  the  bean  had  made  its  growth  it  was  re- 
moved, and  the  soil  was  again  analyzed,  and  the  jar 
of  soil  found  to  contain  more  nitrogen  than  before 
the  bean  had  grown  in  it;  so  the  soy  bean  not  only 
got  all  its  nitrogen  from  the  air,  but  even  stored 
some  from  the  air  into  the  soil.  The  soy  bean  is 
considered  a  good  nitrogen-gatherer,  but  I  doubt 
whether  it  would  grow  well  on  soil  taken  50  feet 
below  the  surface.  Of  course,  sweet  clover  must 
have  also  potash  and  phosphorus,  but  I  think  my 
experience  shows  that  these  elements  are  at  a  con- 
siderable depth  in  the  earth.  The  sweet  clover  would 
not  only  gather  nitrogen  from  the  air  and  store  it  in 
the  soil,  but  it  would,  with  its  long  roots,  gather 
the  other  elements  from  quite  a  depth  and  bring 
them  near  the  surface.  Many  worthless  farms  could 
be  made  very  valuable  with  this  sweet  clover,  as 
no  high  hill  or  poor  steep  side-hill  is  too  poor  for 
sweet  clover  to  grow  on. 

The  wheels,  etc.,  that  move  the  seed  from  place  to 
place  along  a  public  highway  also  move  the  nitrogen- 
gathering  germs  there,  for  it  grows  so  well  along  the 
highway  even  in  barren  clay  banks. 

Much  has  been  said  discouraging  the  planting  of 
anything  for  honey  alone;  but  when  we  plant  sweet 
clover  on  poor  soil  the  enriching  of  that  soil  is  well 
worth  the  trouble  and  expense,  saying  nothing  about 
honey.  The  value  of  sweet  clover  is  just  beginning 
to  be  known.  It  deserves  much  more  credit  than  it 
has  ever  received  from  either  the  farmer  or  bee- 
keeper. J.  B.  JOHNSON. 

Williamsfield,    111. 


27 


SWEET    CLOVER    AS     A    FORAGE-PLANT    IN    ALABAMA/    AS     A 
LAND-RESTORER    IT    HAS    NO    EQUAL. 

We  grow  a  great  deal  of  sweet  clover  here;  and 
after  reading  what  has  been  said  in  GLEANINGS  1 
inclose  a  few  facts  concerning  it  in  this  section. 
They  may  not  be  worth  publishing,  yet  they  may 
show  forth  some  of  the  good  points  of  sweet  clover, 
which  have  been  doubted  by  so  many. 

After  reading  the  articles  on  pages  1120  and  1121 
concerning  sweet  clover  I  have  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  those  people  who  speak  against  it  haven't 
tested  far  enough  to  learn  the  many  redeeming 
qualities  of  sweet  clover  outside  of  a  remarkable 
honey-plant. 

As  a  whole  this  section  of  country  grows  a  large 
quantity  of  sweet  clover,  or  melilotus,  as  we  call  it. 
In  the  first  place  it  was  sown  on  waste  places  to  re- 
deem the  land.  As  a  land  restorer  or  enricher  it 
has  no  equal  here.  Then  the  cattle-men  began  to  see 
and  learn  of  its  value  for  pasture.  There  is  no 
grass  or  clover  here  that  fattens  cattle  so  fast  as 
sweet  clover  does.  A  cattle-raiser  informed  me  the 
other  day  that  people  had  told  him  that  it  wasn't 
sweet  clover,  but  Johnson  grass,  that  fattened  his 
cattle.  "But,"  said  he,  "I  noted  that  my  cattle  didn't 
gain  so  rapidly  after  the  sweet  clover  had  gone." 

It  makes  good  feed  when  cut  at  the  proper  time, 
and  the  stock  relish  it  very  much,  leaving  their 
other  hay  to  seek  out  every  spear  of  sweet  clover, 
and  eating  even  the  coarse  stalks. 

But  right  here,  in  my  best  judgment,  is  where  the 
good  qualities  of  sweet  clover  have  been  overlooked, 
sometimes,  if  not  quite  often,  when  stock  have  not 
been  raised  on  sweet  clover  they  have  to  learn  to 
like  it;  but  after  once  learning  they  never  cease  to 
make  use  of  an  opportunity  to  help  themselves  to  the 
once  distasteful  stuff.  I  have  known  of  horses  that, 
when  first  brought  to  this  section,  wouldn't  eat  sweet 
clover  at  all;  yet  in  a  short  time  they  had  learned 
to  like  it  so  well  that,  if  turned  out  to  graze,  you 
would  see  them  leave  all  other  grasses  and  seek  out 

28 


a  green  plot  of  sweet  clover,  there  to  feed  on  their 
choice  of  the  field. 

I  can  not  speak  for  other  sections  of  our  country; 
for  no  doubt  soil,  climate,  etc.,  make  a  great  differ- 
ence; but  here  in  our  lime  land  sweet  clover  is  fully 
appreciated  and  much  valued  as  a  feed,  pasture,  and 
land-enricher. 

Sybil,  Ala.,  Nov.  14.  A.  B.  BROWN. 

SWEET    CLOVEE    IN    AUSTRALIA. 

The  Australian  journals  are  having  a  good  deal 
to  say  at  present  anent  the  subject  of  yellow  sweet 
clover.  This  is  due  to  the  remarkable  success  at- 
tained by  its  use  on  King  Island,  which  lies  a  little 
to  the  south  of  Australia,  and  which  forms  a  part 
ot  Tasmania.  A  Mr.  W.  C.  Macdougall,  of  Sydney, 
has  succeeded  in  interesting  the  agricultural  depart- 
ment with  a  view  to  the  more  extended  trial  of  the 
sweet  clover.  He  says  in  the  Journal  of  Agriculture 
for  West  Australia  that  the  seed  was  sown  in  raw 
white  sand,  and  in  five  or  six  years  this  was  changed 
to  an  almost  dark  rich  loam  capable  of  maintaining 
one  steer  to  the  acre  from  September  to  January — 5 
months.  He  further  says  the  growth  is  similar  to 
alfalfa,  and  that,  when  cut  while  it  is  in  flower,  it 
yields  nearly  two  tons  of  excellent  hay,  which  horses, 
cattle  and  sheep  are  very  fond  of.  The  ensilage  made 
from  it  is  also  excellent,  and  yields  from  5  to  7  tons 
per  acre  of  green  material.  For  fattening  and  dairy- 
ing purposes  he  says  it  is  excellent,  and  that  75  per 
cent  of  the  fodder  on  the  island  is  from  this  source, 
and  that  both  the  beef  and  butter  command  the 
highest  market  prices.  Fed  exclusively,  it  taints 
the  butter  slightly,  but  not  enough  to  injure  the  sale 
in  any  way.  Instead  of  cutting  it  close  with  a 
mower,  as  is  done  in  Kansas  and  Colorado,  the  King 
Islanders  burn  it  off  their  pastures  every  year,  and 
they  think  this  has  something  to  do  with  the  rapid 
improvement  of  the  land. 

In  this  way  weeds  are  kept  down,  and  a  fresh 
start  made  each  year.  They  harrow  first  and  sow 
after,  the  rain  and  wind  being  sufficient  to  cover  the 

29 


seed.  Ten  to  twenty  pounds  of  seeds  are  allowed  to 
the  acre.  He  says  the  animals  acquire  a  taste  for  it, 
and,  after  being  used  to  it,  like  it  very  much.  It  is 
claimed  that  millions  of  acres  of  similar  land  on  the 
continent  of  Australia  can  be  reclaimed  in  the  same 
manner  by  the  yellow  sweet  clover.  What  is  pecu- 
liarly interesting  about  all  this  is  that  both  the 
soil  and  climate  of  King  Island  correspond  almost 
exactly  to  Florida,  and,  furthermore,  that  cattle-rais- 
ing is  the  prominent  industry  as  it  is  also  in  Florida. 

If  the  experience  of  the  Australians  can  be  dupli- 
cated in  Florida  we  may  yet  live  to  see  the  "Land  of 
Flowers"  become  the  leading  bee  State  of  the  Union. 
One  thing  in  favor  of  this  view  is  that  yellow  sweet 
clover  grows  admirably  in  Bermuda — a  milder  cli- 
mate than  that  of  Florida.  W.  K.  M. 

Medina,  O.,  Nov.  1,  1907. 

SWEET  CLOVER;  WHAT  IT  HAS  DONE  FOB  KING  ISLAND. 

We  take  the  following  (in  addition  to  the  above) 
from  a  newspaper  clipping  furnished  us  by  Mr.  Her- 
bert J.  Rumsey,  of  Boronia,  New  South  Wales,  Aus- 
tralia. If  there  are  any  farmers  or  other  people 
left  who  insist  that  sweet  clover  is  a  noxious  weed 
they  had  better  read  and  ponder. 

Many  years  ago,  it  appears,  a  Dutch  ship  was  wrecked  off 
the  island  coast,  and  some  of  the  sailors'  mattresses  were 
washed  ahore.  These  mattresses  were  stuffed  with  what  is 
locally  known  now  as  melilot  grass,  and  this  grass  contained 
a  fair  amount  of  seed,  which,  falling  on  the  sandy  beaches, 
threw  up  a  few  tufts  and  in  the  course  of  years  gradually 
spread  unt^l  it  now  covers  nearly  the  whole  of  the  coastal 
sandy  areas. 

Strictly  speaking,  it  is  not  a  grass  at  all.  It  is  a  yellow- 
flowered  clover,  known  botanically  as  Melilotus  officinalis, 
and  a  half-brother  of  Melilotus  alba,  commonly  called  Bok- 
hara clover.  Furthermore,  being  a  leguminous  plant  it  ab- 
sorbs a  certain  amount  of  nitrogen  from  the  atmosphere  and 
transfers  it  to  the  soil.  This  remark  may  appear  slightly 
superfluous  to  many  readers,  but  it  strikes  the  keynote  of 
Mr.  Macdougall's  remarks  on  the  subject.  He  said  in  effect : 

The  fertilizing  power  of  this  grass  is  simply  wonderful. 
It  has  transformed  King  Island  from  an  island  of  useless 
sanddunes  into  one  of  the  best  grazing  districts  of  the  com- 

30 


monwealth.  This  wonderful  grass,  sown  on  raw  white 
beach  sand,  has  in  the  course  of  five  years  changed  the  char- 
acter of  it  until  at  the  end  of  that  time  it  has  become  a 
dark-brown  color,  in  some  places  almost  black ;  and  its 
value  as  soil  has  increased  100  per  cent.  Every  year  it  is 
improving  the  value  of  the  land  and  gives  increasing  quan- 
tities of  feed.  Now  the  export  trade  of  King  Island  consists 
of  fat  cattle,  dairy  produce,  horses,  etc.,  and  by  far  the  most 
extensively  used  grass  is  melilot.  The  King  Island  fat  cat- 
tle always  realize  the  best  prices  in  the  Tasmanian  markets, 
to  which  the  first  shipments  are  made  in  August,  and  con- 
tinue till  February  and  March  in  each  year,  over  1300  head 
of  fat  cattle  being  sent  away  this  last  season.  The  King 
Island  Co-operative  Butter  Factory  turns  out  butter  of  the 
highest  standard,  a  good  quantity  of  which  is  exported  to 
England,  and  is  always  among  those  brands  that  realize  the 
highest  prices.  And  this  butter  is  madi-  from  cows  whose 
principal  food  is  melilot.  Sheep  and  horses  also  do  re- 
markably well  on  it.  Sheep  have  been  killed  weighing  up  to 
120  Ibs.,  and  the  two-year-old  horses  of  King  Island  are  as 
big  as  the  three-year-olds  of  Tasmania. 

Melilot  is  very  similar  to  lucerne  in  appearance,  and  grows 
to  an  average  height  of  3  leet.  It  has  often  grown  to  8  feet 
high  on  heavy  ash,  in  the  better  class  of  soil  in  the  interior 
of  the  island.  The  average  crop  of  hay  is  two  tons  to  the 
acre,  often  running  as  high  as  three  tons  when  Algerian  oats 
are  sown  with  it.  Cattle,  horses,  and,  in  fact,  all  kinds  of 
stock,  are  very  fond  of  the  hay,  which  has  a  beautiful 
aroma.  When  cut  green  for  ensilage  it  yields  about  five 
ions  per  acre. 

I  do  not  wish  to  boom  this  as  the  best  grass  there  is,  be- 
cause I  know  well  enough  it  is  not  so.  For  instance,  I 
certainly  would  not  advise  one  to  discard  clover,  etc.,  for 
melilot ;  but  what  I  do  claim  is  that  for  any  one  who  has 
poor  sandy  country  lying  idle,  this  is  the  grass  ;  for  it  not 
only  gives  you  a  large  quantity  of  good  feed,  but  is  each 
year  improving  the  quality  of  the  soil  until  it  is  sufficiently 
rich  to  allow  it  to  grow  something  better.  For  instance, 
there  are  paddocks  of  lucerne  growing  on  King  Island  which 
would  not  be  there  now  if  the  melilot  had  not  improved  the 
ground  sufficiently  to  allow  it  to  do  well. 

Another  good  point  is  the  ease  with  which  this  grass  is 
grown.  The  best  way  is  to  burn  off  the  paddock.  If  scrub, 
it  should  be  fallen  about  six  weeks  or  two  months  before, 
and  immediately  after  the  fire  sow  the  seed  at  the  rate  of 
about  10  to  15  Ibs.  per  acre.  The  sooner  after  the  fire  the 
better.  It  likes  to  be  sown  in  hot  ashes.  The  fire  germinates 
the  seed  more  quickly  than  when  unburnt.  Melilot  starts  to 
spring  from  March  to  May,  and  keeps  green  right  through  to 
February,  when  it  dies  off,  and  is  burned  off  again.  It 
should  be  burned  off  every  year  until  well  established.  It  is 
an  abundant  seeder,  and  cattle  and  horses  rapidly  spread  the 
seed  in  manure.  It  requires  seeding  only  once,  of  course. 
The  grazing  capacity  of  melilot  from  September  to  January 
(five  months)  is  a  beast  to  the  acre.  It  is  somewhat  of  an 
acquired  taste  ;  but  when  cattle  get  used  to  it  they  become 
31 


very  fond  of  it — especially  so  when  made  into  hay.  This 
melilot  grass  is  indeed  a  wonderful  plant ;  and  if  given  a 
decent  show  it  would  make  a  lot  of  what  is  at  present  use- 
less sand  become  useful  grazing  country  ;  and  the  seed,  not 
being  expensive,  might  easily  be  given  a  trial.  Dr.  Cherry, 
of  the  Victorian  Agricultural  Department,  speaks  very  highly 
of  this  grass,  and  it  is  also  strongly  recommended  by  the 
Tasmanian  agricultural  experts  £or  green  manuring. 

King  Island  is  this  year  earlier  with  grass  than  any  of 
the  districts  I  saw  when  traveling  through  Gippsland  and 
the  western  districts  of  Victoria ;  also  South  Australia  as 
far  as  Adelaide,  and  also  New  South  Wales.  At  the  end  of 
March  we  had  4  inches  of  young  grass,  and  at  present  it  is 
about  10  inches.  Drouths  are  unknown,  and  seasons  fairly 
regular.  I  feel  quite  sure  that,  if  given  a  show,  a  lot  of 
raw  sandy  patches  on  the  coast  of  New  South  Wales  could 
be  made  far  more  profitable  than  at  present. 


A    REVELATION    IN    ROAD-MAKING. 

We  all  know  how  desirable  it  is  to  have  good  roads, 
and  now  miserably  we  generally  fail  in  getting  them. 
The  colossal  ignorance  of  the  average  "highwayman" 
is  astonishing;  but  he  seems  to  plod  along,  year  after 
year,  in  the  same  old  way. 

Usually,  as  soon  as  the  roads  become  dry  and  rea- 
sonably good  in  early  summer,  he  commences  with 
plow  and  scraper,  and  soon  has  a  lot  of  "soft  stuff" 
in  the  center,  to  be  ground  up  into  dust  or  mud  as  the 
weather  may  determine.  Perhaps  in  October  he  will 
repeat  the  operation,  with  the  same  result,  and  will, 
perhaps,  congratulate  himself  on  work  well  done. 
Oh,  yes!  If  there  is  any  sweet  clover  growing  in 
the  fence-corners  it  must  be  carefully  cut  down,  al- 
though the  jimsons,  rag-weeds,  and  thistles  may  go  to 
seed.  Perhaps  he  will  do  a  good  deal  of  swearing  at 
the  bee-men,  who,  he  imagines,  walk  around  nights 
sowing  the  seed  for  his  especial  benefit.  Likely 
enough  the  farmers  will  do  the  swearing  the  rest  of 
the  year  about  the  bad  roads. 

Last  July,  while  driving  in  a  distant  township  I 
struck  a  piece  of  road  that  was  a  pleasant  surprise 
and  a  revelation  to  me.  Evidently  some  bee-keeper 
must  be  road  commissioner,  or  else  he  had  learned 
something.  Here,  as  in  so  many  places  in  Illinois, 
the  sweet  clover  was  growing  luxuriantly  on  both 


sides  of  the  road.  By  running  a  mower  up  and  down 
the  road  -several  times  during  the  summer  it  had 
been  kept  from  encroaching  on  the  driveway.  Not 
only  that,  but  the  cut  clover  had  been  thrown  into 
the  middle  of  the  road;  and  how  springy  and  delight- 
ful it  all  was!  There  was  no  dust,  and  the  pleasant 
perfume  of  sweet  clover  filled  the  air.  Some  cattle 
in  an  adjacent  pasture  were  reaching  through  the 
wire  fence  and  feeding  on  the  clover  within  reach; 
and  the  bees  were  on  hand  by  thousands,  carrying 
away  the  nectar  and  filling  the  air  with  their  content- 
ed hum.  Soon  I  passed  into  another  township;  and, 
though  the  sweet  clover  had  extended  for  miles  fur- 
ther, it  had  all  been  cut  and  burned  in  the  road, 
leaving  a  scene  of  desolation;  and,  oh  how  dusty  it 
was! 

Again  I  passed  over  this  road  in  October.  I  had 
been  wallowing  through  the  mud,  and  was  weary 
enough,  when  I  again  experienced  the  pleasant  sen- 
sation of  my  sweet-clover  road.  Instead  of  mud  there 
was  that  springy  roadbed,  without  mud  or  dust. 
Upon  further  investigation  I  found  the  sweet  clover 
had  all  been  cut  when  about  done  blooming,  and  care- 
fully piled  in  the  road  where  the  sun  had  soon  wilted 
it,  and  the  wagon-wheels  had  crushed  and  mixed  it 
with  the  soil.  Though  this  road  ran  through  a  level 
mucky  country  it  was  the  best  road  there  was  any- 
where. The  millions  of  decaying  roots  in  the  ground 
on  either  side  seemed  to  provide  a  sort  of  natural 
drainage  that  seemed  to  carry  off  all  surplus  water. 
It  appeared  that  no  work  with  plow  or  grader  had 
been  done  on  it  for  several  years,  and  only  the  intelli- 
gent care  of  the  clover  had  done  the  business. 

Now,  is  it  not  possible  that,  aside  from  bee-keeping, 
as  so  often  happens,  we  have  been  making  war  on  our 
best  friend?  Surely  the  suggestions  I  have  men- 
tioned .are  worth  investigating.  Sweet  clover  has 
come  to  stay;  and,  whether  we  are  bee-keepers  or 
not,  had  we  not  better  turn  it  to  some  account? 

C.  H.  DIBBERN. 

Milan,  111.,  July  1,  1899. 

33 


CUTTING    SWEET    CLOVER   FOE    HAY. 

Sweet  clover  cut  after  a  large  proportion  of  the 
blossoms  have  appeared  will  still  make  very  fair  hay. 
Back  in  LaSalle  Co.,  111.,  the  roadsides  in  many  places 
are  lined  for  miles  with  sweet  clover.  The  law  re- 
quires the  road  commissioners  to  cut  this.  The  time 
they  generally  do  this  is  when  the  sweet  clover  is  in 
full  bloom.  Of  course,  I  did  not  enjoy  seeing  the 
mower  start  on  the  roadside  just  when  the  bees  were 
doing  so  nicely,  but  there  was  no  use  in  objecting. 
Last  season,  though,  I  thought  I  would  see  if  I  could 
not  make  some  use  of  the  clover  after  it  was  cut.  It 
had  been  cut  after  it  had  been  in  bloom  for  about 
two  weeks,  and  the  plant  was  quite  mature.  So  I 
raked  up  a  lot  of  this  clover  along  tne  highway  and 
put  it  into  the  barn.  It  was  just  then  a  very  busy 
season  of  year  for  me,  and  I  could  not  give  much  time 
to  haying,  so  that  several  loads  were  left  out  a  great 
deal  longer  than  they  ought  to  have  bee'n.  It  was  so 
dry  that  the  leaves  would  all  drop  off  if  any  attempt 
was  made  to  handle  it  after  the  dew  was  off  in  the 
morning.  Some  of  it  was  rained  on,  and  none  of  it 
had  less  than  two  days  of  hot  sun,  most  of  it  several 
days.  Yet  in  spite  of  this  bad  treatment  my  stock, 
both  horse  and  cattle,  liked  it  and  throve  on  it.  It 
looked  more  like  hazel  brush  than  hay,  and  the  cattle 
would  not  eat  all  of  the  coarse  woody  stalks,  though 
the  horse  would  eat  most  of  it  up  clean.  I  have  seen 
the  horse  come  in  from  a  good  blue-grass  pasture  and 
pitch  into  that  sweet-clover  hay  like  a  small  boy  into 
a  watermelon. 

The  proper  way  to  cut  sweet  clover  for  hay,  though, 
is  to  cut  it  before  it  comes  into  bloom,  being  careful 
not  to  cut  it  too  close  to  the  ground.  In  this  way  it 
will  grow  again,  branching  out  freely  and  giving  a 
good  crop  of  honey  after  the  ordinary  growth  is  past 
its  prime.  I  cut  a  small  patch  of  sweet  clover  this 
way  this  season.  It  made  excellent  hay,  and  'I  think 
the  second  crop  yielded  more  honey  than  if  it  had 
been  cut. 

The  browsing  of  stock,  if  not  carried  too  far,  is 
often  beneficial  in  the  same  way.  If  given  free  access 


to  it  they  will  sometimes  keep  it  eaten  so  close  that 
it  will  have  no  chance  to  bloom,  though  it  is  not 
easily  discouraged.  I  have  seen  the  ground  quite 
white  with  sweet-clover  blossoms  on  plants  not  over 
two  inches  high. 

Another  way  to  get  a  crop  of  hay  from  sweet  clover 
without  affecting  the  honey  crop  is  to  cut  the  clover 
the  first  season,  cutting  it  very  late.  I  have  never 
tried  this  more  than  once,  but  the  experiment  was 
very  successful.  A  fair  crop  of  very  good  hay  was 
the  result,  and  the  clover  was  not  damaged  at  all. 
1  intended  to  try  this  on  a  larger  scale,  but  my  re- 
moval here  upset  my  plans. 

Some  of  the  Utah  bee-keepers  that  I  met  at  the 
Denver  convention  told  me  that,  in  their  part  of  the 
State,  sweet  clover  was  extensively  raised  for  hay. 
I  have  also  been  told  that  in  some  of  the  Southern 
States  it  is  raised  largely  as  a  forage  plant.  It  might 
be  a  profitable  thing  to  get  some  of  these  men  to  tell 
us  how  it  is  done  on  a  commercial  scale.  I  am  con- 
vinced that  there  are  still  undeveloped  possibilities 
in  sweet  clover.  J.  A.  GREEN. 

Grand  Junction,  Col.,  Nov.  26,  1899. 

HEAVIER    TESTIMONY    STILL    IN    REGARD    TO    SWEET    CLOVER 
AS   A  FORAGE   PLANT. 

Mr.  Root. — I  have  been  reading  in  GLEANINGS  for 
and  against  sweet  clover.  Well,  I  have  had  a  good 
deal  of  experience  with  it  myself,  and  consider  it  a 
valuable  plant  as  a  forage  for  cattle  and  horses.  If 
cut  and  allowed  to  wilt,  cows  eat  it  readily  and  thrive 
upon  it,  giving  finely  flavored  milk  and  butter.  Many 
acres  of  it  are  grown  here  around  the  shores  of  Utah 
Lake,  upon  land  so  heavily  charged  with  mineral 
(alkali)  that  other  crops  will  not  grow  at  all,  just 
for  the  purpose  of  reclaiming  the  land.  After  the 
clover  crop,  good  crops  of  grain  will  grow.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  value  of  the  tops,  the  roots  are  also  (/con- 
sider) more  valuable,  being  one  of  the  best  root  crops 
grown  for  cattle.  Why,  cows  are  just  crazy  for  them. 
How  I  found  this  out  was,  I  plowed  up  a  five-acre 
piece  of  sweet-clover  land  in  the  fall  of  the  year,  seven 

35 


years  ago,  after  the  crops  had  been  gathered  and  the 
cattle  turned  into  the  fields.  Imagine  my  surprise 
on  seeing  them  all  gather  upon  this  piece  of  plowed 
land  and  eat  those  clover  roots  down.  The  cows  al- 
most doubled  their  flow  of  milk.  This  lasted  for 
weeks  until  the  land  was  tramped  so  solid  that  they 
could  not  get  another  root  out  of  it,  and  the  plowing, 
I  think,  didn't  do  much  good.  In  addition  to  these 
values  the  plant  is  valuable  as  a  fiber-producing  plant. 
A  number  of  years  ago,  at  one  of  our  county  fairs  I 
saw  some  fine  towels  made  of  the  fiber  of  sweet  clover. 
They  looked  much  like  linen,  and  were  very  strong. 
too  much  for  sweet  clover.  I  have  no  seed  to  sell. 

ELIAS  JOHNSON. 
Provo  City,  Utah,  Feb.  17. 

SWEET   CLOVER  IN   DAKOTA. 

Mr.  D.  Danielson,  of  this  vicinity,  is  a  wide-awake 
farmer  and  bee-keeper.  He  raises  melilotus  right 
along,  and  cuts  it  when  in  bloom,  for  hay.  He  con- 
siders it  excellent  food  for  horses,  as  well  as  a  good 
bee  plant,  and  does  not  deem  it  a  noxious  weed  in 
this  fertile  soil.  Mr.  C.  Jantz,  of  Marion,  a  farmer  and 
Dee-keeper,  has  been  raising  sweet  clover  for  several 
years.  He  tells  me  that  he  tried  to  get  a  stand  in 
his  pasture,  hoping  the  cows  would  leave  enough  so 
as  to  reseed  it;  but  they,  instead,  hunted  it  and  kept 
it  cropped  down  close  to  the  ground.  He  also  says 
that  the  milk  and  butter  from  sweet  clover  have  a 
most  delicious  flavor. 

I  saw  a  patch  of  it  at  Mr.  Jantz's  last  summer  that 
was,  without  stretching  it  an  inch,  ten  feet  high.  I 
have  tried  to  make  it  choke  out  unseemly  patches  of 
sunflower  and  rag  weed,  but  this,  I  think,  it  can't 
ao  in  this  country.  The  great  leaves  of  these  plants 
cover  the  ground  so  completely  that  nothing  else  can 
come  through.  Though  we  have  some  nice  fields  of 
alfalfa  hereabouts,  I  fear  it  is  a  little  dry  for  this 
kind  of  clover;  and  I  think  that,  when  sweet  clover 
shall  become  better  known,  it  will  prove  an  excellent 
plant  for  this  region.  S.  J.  HARMELING. 

Marion,  S.  D.,  Dec.  27,  1899. 

36 


SWEET  CLOVER  FOR  BEES   AND   STOCK  IN  ILLINOIS. 

This  clover  is  one  that  yields  a  large  amount  of 
honey.  It  begins  to  bloom  in  this  latitude  in  the  early 
part  of  July,  usually;  some  seasons  a  little  earlier, 
others  a  little  later.  By  the  time  white  and  alsike 
clover  and  basswood  are  going  out  of  bloom,  sweet- 
clover  is  well  out  in  bloom;  and  where  abundant  a 
continuous  bloom  will  be  had  for  securing  surplus 
honey  of  two  months  or  more.  When  a  part  of  this 
clover  is  pastured  or  mown  for  hay,  such  will  bloom 
the  second  time,  and  continue  in  bloom  until  after 
hard  frosts.  I  have  seen  bees  working  on  this  bloom 
in  October,  when  all  other  honey-yielding  plants  were 
killed  with  one  exception,  that  being  giant  white- 
spiral  mignonette,  which  is  sometimes  grown  in 
flower-gardens. 

Sweet  clover  stands  drouth  well,  but  gives  a  better 
yield  of  honey  and  pasture  with  frequent  showers. 
The  honey  is  light  in  color,  but,  to  my  taste,  not  of 
as  fine  a  flavor  as  that  from  white  or  alsike  clovers 
or  basswood.  In  the  dry  regions  of  the  West,  sweet 
clover  and  alfalfa  have  proved  valuable  plants  for 
bees  and  stock.  The  hay  is  largely  fed  to  stock. 
Here  cattle  pasture  on  it  freely,  and  the  hay  has 
seemed  to  give  good  satisfaction,  as  stock  soon  learn 
to  like  it. 

This  plant  should  be  grown  in  all  waste  places,  and 
thus  take  the  place  of  the  noxious  weeds  which  grow 
there. 

For  hay  this  clover  should  be  cut  while  stalks  and 
leaves  are  a  bright  green,  and  before  any  seed-stalks 
appear.  A  large  amount  is  grown  on  an  acre  when 
a  good  stand  is  secured. 

The  plant  is  not  so  hard  to  get  rid  of  when  de- 
sired as  some  suppose.  When  the  land  is  broken  up 
and  cultivated  the  plant  is  gone,  and  no  further 
trouble  need  be  feared  any  more  than  from  other 
clovers.  Pasturing  the  field  so  no  seeds  mature  has 
the  same  effect  if  kept  up  one  or  two  summers.  Some 
farmers  in  this  State  are  growing  large  fields  of  this 
clover  for  feeding  to  stock  in  pasture  and  hay,  so  f 
am  credibly  informed. 

37 


In  sowing  the  seed  the  ground  should  be  made  fine 
and  rather  firm,  as  better  results  are  so  secured  than 
when  the  ground  is  left  loose  to  quite  a  depth.  It 
blooms  the  next  year  after  sowing  the  seed. 

Milledgeville,  111.,  Aug.,  1899.  F.  A.  SNELL. 

HOW  TO  GET  KID  OF  IT,  ETC. 

Mr.  E.  Smith's  advice  to  L.  A.  Sawyer  in  regard  to 
getting  rid  of  sweet  clover  is  sound.  It  is  just  what 
they  do  here,  and  (I  am  sorry  to  say)  they  succeed, 
bweet  clover  is  termed  a  noxious  weed  in  this  locality. 
Street  commissioners,  road  supervisors,  and  railroad- 
section  foremen  have  strict  instructions  to  cut  it  be- 
fore it  blooms.  In  this,  however,  they  do  not  always 
succeed;  but  they  do  as  a  rule  get  at  least  the  most  of 
it  cut  before  it  can  ripen  its  seeds. 

As  I  saw  this  wholesale  destruction  I  remonstrated 
vigorously,  and  I  used  A.  I.  Root's  well-known  phrase, 
*  ic  will  never  trespass  on  cultivated  soil,  or  any  pas- 
ture;" but  there  I  got  my  foot  in  it.  I  was  shown 
nlaces  where  it  had  got  a  rod  or  more  into  a  pasture 
field  and  also  in  meadow. 

Will  cattle  not  eat  it?  Yes,  they  do;  but  not  as 
long  as  they  have  plenty  of  June  grass;  and  by  the 
time  June  grass  is  scarce  the  clover  is  too  big.  If 
the  farmers  would  cut  it  only  once,  then  the  cattle 
would  take  care  of  it  after  the  June  grass  is  gone. 
A  year  ago  last  August  my  bees  were  storing  honey 
fast,  and  it  all  came  from  the  sweet  clover.  We  had 
had  some  rain,  which  had  started  the  clover  anew. 
One  day  I  went  to  Plasterhead,  about  three  miles  dis- 
tant, and  along  the  roads  I  saw  a  sight  of  beauty—- 
the fresh  green  of  sweet  clover,  and  only  6  or  8  inches 
high,  loaded  with  bloom,  and  my  bees  were  fairly 
swarming  on  it.  A  flock  of  half-starving  cattle  and 
pigs  tried  in  vain  to  get  their  heads  through  the  fence 
and  get  a  bite  of  it;  but  as  I  returned,  three  men 
were  at  work,  cutting  down  the  "noxious  weed"  that 
the  starving  cattle  were  not  allowed  to  get  a  bite  of; 
and  next  day  my  bees  began  robbing.  I  had  62  colo- 
nies, and  might  have  got  many  pounds  of  honey  had 
it  been  left;  but  it  is  a  "noxious  weed,"  and  must  go. 
Port  Clinton,  O.,  Feb.  7,  1899.  JULIUS  JOHANNSEN. 


QUALITY  OF  THE   HONEY. 

I  see  so  many  running  down  Melilotus  alba  that  I 
feel  like  saying  something  in  its  behalf.  It  is  the 
first  of  our  forage-plants  to  come  in  the  spring,  and 
the  last  to  be  killed  down  in  the  fall.  Stock  eat  it 
readily  until  it  becomes  rather  woody,  and  even  then 
eat  the  smaller  shoots.  We  grow  it  for  pasture,  for 
-  ay,  and  as  a  honey-plant.  We  have  no  trouble  what- 
ever in  getting  rid  of  it  here.  Our  greatest  trouble  is 
in  keeping  it  set  where  stock  is  allowed  to  run  on  it. 
Melilotus  being  a  biennial,  we  either  have  to  keep 
stock  off  or  resow  every  two  years.  It  makes  a  rather 
thrifty  growth  on  our  thinnest  soil,  and  even  where 
the  soil  is  washed,  leaving  the  white  limestone  ex- 
posed, you  will  find  our  melilotus  there  by  itself.  We 
keep  from  40  to  50  colonies  of  bees,  and  almost  our 
entire  crop  of  honey  is  from  this  plant.  Our  extracted 
is  almost  transparent  (that  is,  almost  water-white), 
and  of  a  splendid  mild  flavor. 

My  uncle  (a  nurseryman),  from  Southern  Illinois, 
was  with  us  during  the  holidays  just  past.  He  pro- 
nounced our  melilotus.  honey  as  good  as  the  best.  We 
usually  sell  all  we  get  here  at  home,  and  have  none 
for  sale  now.  Hence  it  can  not  be  said  that  we  have 
an  ax  to  grind  because  we  praise  it,  but  because  we 
think  we  have  a  valuable  forage  and  honey-plant  in 
melilotus.  L.  H.  GOULD. 

Crawford,  Mass.,  Feb.  1,  1899. 

SWEET    CLOVER   IN    COLORADO. 

It  is  remarkable  that  sweet  clover  can  be  made  to 
grow  where  nothing  else  will  take  root.  I  have  seen 
it  on  the  alkali  lands  of  Colorado  and  California — 
lands  where  nothing  could  exist,  except,  perhaps,  a 
kind  of  alkali  weed  that  is  absolutely  useless  to 
either  man  or  beast;  and  yet  we  hear  how  sweet 
clover  is  regarded  as  a  noxious  weed  by  State  legis- 
latures and  township  trustees.  Even  in  this  State, 
mayors  are  ordered  to  cut  down  along  municipal 
roadsides  all  weeds,  including  sweet  clover,  and  yet 
tLere  is  nothing  so  good  as  a  soil-binder  for  loose 

39 


lands  as  sweet  clover.  I  should  not  be  surprised  if 
it  were  worth  millions  of  dollars  to  railroad  com- 
panies to  prevent  the  washing  away  of  embankments, 
for  that  is  where  it  does  best,  on  hard  yellow  clay  01 
other  soil  where  nothing  else  can  grow  and  take  root. 

There  are  big  dumps  near  Cleveland  where  refuse, 
cinders,  and  slag  of  e'very  sort  are  thrown;  but  I 
have  noticed  how  sweet  clover  seems  to  find  its  way 
along  the  edges  of  these  dumps,  and  it  seems  to  be 
creeping  all  over,  making  the  waste  land  productive 
of  at  least  some  good.  A.  I.  ROOT. 

September,  1903. 

SHEEP  EATING  SWEET  CLOVER. 

I  see  in  last  GLEANINGS  that  Mr.  Sawyer  is  giving 
you  a  pretty  hard  going-over  about  sweet  clover.  Tell 
him  we  have  had  it  growing  in  our  place  for  16  or  18 
years,  and  it  only  just  about  keeps  going,  and  we 
have  favored  it  to  keep  it  growing,  in  black  prairie 
soil  at  that.  If  Mr.  Sawyer  will  spend  his  $50.00  in  a 
small  flock  of  sheep,  and  let  them  tend  his  sweet 
clover,  I  do  not  think  it  will  hurt  his  land  or  the 
sheep  either.  Ours  eat  it  greedily. 

H.  C.  SEARS. 

Thornburg,  Iowa,  Dec.  8,  1899. 

IS   SWEET  CLOVER  A  NOXIOUS   WEED? 

Mr.  William  Stolley,  of  Nebraska,  gives  a  remark- 
auiy  interesting  talk  on  sweet  clover — how  to  raise  it, 
use  it,  and  control  its  growth.  Among  many  good 
points  he  makes,  I  note  the  following:  "In  Nebraska 
it  will  furnish  most  excellent  bee-pasture  up  to  the 
time  when  frost  kills  all  vegetation,  and  sweet  clover 
is  the  very  last  to  succumb.  For  early  spring  pas- 
turing of  cattle,  particularly  milch  cows,  there  is 
nothing  better  than  sweet  clover."  "It  runs  out  all 
noxious  weeds,  perfumes  the  air,  and  feeds  the  bees.' 
"A  public  road,  well  and  evenly  seeded  with  melilot 
but  the  growth  of  it  properly  checked  at  the  proper 
time,  is  a  thing  of  great  beauty,  and  there  is  nothing 
bad  about  it,  but,  instead,  it  furnishes  a  bee-rancb 
hard  to  beat." 


YELLOW    SWEET    CLOVER. 

I  have  demonstrated  that  yellow  sweet  clover  is  not 
an  annual,  as  some  writers  have  claimed,  but  a  bi- 
ennial, the  same  as  the  white  variety.  I  have  now 
a  small  plot  of  the  yellow  in  my  garden,  which  is 
two  feet  in  height,  and  will  soon  be  in  bloom.  It 
blooms  from  two  to  three  weeks  earlier  than  the 
white,  which  is  a  desirable  feature.  It  grows  a  finer 
stalk,  but  not  so  tall  as  the  white.  My  plot  of  the 
yellow  was  all  destroyed,  except  one  root,  in  Feb., 
1899,  by  the  hard  freeze;  but  whether  it  is  less  hardy 
than  the  white  I  can  not  say  at  present.  I  can  say 
this,  however,  that  it  would  be  a  difficult  thing  in 
this  locality  to  cnke  the  average  farmer  believe  that 
the  white  variety  ever  winter-kills. 

M.  M.  BALDBIDGE. 

St.  Charles,  111.,  May  23,  1900. 

SWEET  CLOVER  IN  TEXAS;    IS  IT  A  "BAD  WEED"  ON 
THE    FARM? 

I  had  about  30  acres  or  my  larm  in  sweet  clover 
in  1898,  and  it  paid  me  over  $3.00  per  acre,  which  is  a 
good  rent  for  average  land  here.  I  have  about  28 
acres  this  year,  and  I  would  continue  it  on  my  farm 
if  it  were  not  for  my  neighbors'  bees,  which  get  as 
much  honey  as  I  do,  or  more.  About  the  last  days 
of  May,  1898,  the  bees  were  without  stores,  very  little 
brood,  and  quite  weak;  yet  the  crop  of  honey  taken 
that  year  paid  me  over  $100,  besides  keeping  it  on 
the  table  all  the  time  for  six  or  eight  in  family,  and 
tne  principal  part  of  the  crop  was  from  sweet  clover. 
It  makes  good  pasture  in  early  spring,  and,  if  turned 
under  after  blooming,  it  will  tell  on  a  wheat  crop. 

Last  summer,  while  breaking  the  clover  land,  I 
fastened  a  piece  of  domestic  cloth  on  and  above  my 
disk  plow,  and  caught  quite  a  lot  of  the  flying  seed 
while  plowing.  I  have  been  sowing  the  seed  all 
around  the  fences  on  the  farm.  I  prefer  raising  hon- 
ey instead  of  weeds  and  bushes.  J.  H.  RODERICK. 

Dodd  City,  Tex.,  Feb,  28,  1900. 
41 


AN    ARGUMENT  FOR  THOSE  WHO  INSIST  THAT  IT  IS    A  BAD 
WEED. 

When  I  began  keeping  bees,  15  or  16  years  ago, 
there  was  an  abundance  of  sweet  clover  growing 
along  the  railroad  near  where  I  lived;  and  although 
I  knew  very  little  about  bees  I  took  from  75  to  150 
Ibs.  of  honey  per  colony.  A  law  was  passed  com- 
pelling the  railroads  to  cut  all  bushes,  weeds,  etc., 
along  their  tracks,  and  they  soon  destroyed  the  sweet 
clover.  Then  my  honey-yields  shrunk  to  from  25 
to  50  Ibs.  per  colony,  notwithstanding  my  increased 
knowledge  of  the  business.  Since  coming  here  (three 
years  this  coming  spring)  I  have  sown  140  Ibs.  of 
sweet  clover,  and  have  very  little  to  show  for  it.  I 
have  about  20  acres  on  my  farm  that  will  raise  fair 
crops  of  rye,  corn,  buckwheat,  etc.,  and  I  am  willing 
to  pay  $100  to  have  it  well  seeded  to  sweet  clover. 
Here  is  a  chance  for  Mr.  Lewis  A.  Sawyer,  or  some 
other  sweet-clover  kicker.  H.  J.  NORTHRUP. 

Jonesville,  N.  Y.,  Jan.  5,  1899. 

ITS    VALUE    FOR    BRINGING    UP    POOR    GROUND    AND    UNPRO- 
DUCTIVE   CLAY. 

Right  adjoining  our  premises  is  a  bank  of  earth 
thrown  out  of  a  railroad  cut.  This  soil  came  out 
01  the  cut  from  a  depth  of  ten  or  twelve  feet.  Some 
years  ago  I  got  permission  of  the  railway  company 
to  use  it  by  way  of  experiment.  Of  course,  nothing 
would  grow  on  it — that  is,  nothing  but  sweet  clover, 
which  is  already  along  the  railroad.  We  let  it  grow 
up  and  scatter  seed  until  last  spring,  when  I  saw 
there  was  a  dense  growth  of  thick,  succulent  stalks, 
aoout  two  feet  high.  When  we  were  plowing  under 
the  clover  in  the  field  adjoining,  I  directed  our 
folks  to  turn  under  the  sweet  clover,  and  said 
we  would  try  it  with  Carman  potatoes.  The  potatoes 
came  up  rank  and  strong,  to  my  great  surprise,  and 
we  have  just  been  digging  them,  and  I  was  sur- 
prised again  to  find  some  of  the  handsomest,  cleanest 
potatoes  on  that  hard,  unproductive  clay  bank  that 
I  ever  raised  anywhere.  There  was  not  a  particle 

42 


of  scab,  no  work  of  wire  worms  or  grubs;  and  the 
crop  that  we  got  was  at  the  rate  of  at  least  100 
bushels  per  acre.  From  this  experiment  I  infer  that 
sweet  clover  is  not  only  worth  as  much  to  turn  under 
as  any  of  the  common  clovers,  but  I  should  say  even 
more. — GLEANINGS,  Nov.  1,  1900. 

AN  ESTIMATE  OF  ITS  VALUE  PER  ACRE  AS  A  HONEY-PLANT. 

Bees  have  done  very  poorly  for  me  this  season 
on  account  of  cold  wet  weather  in  June,  losing  a  few 
hives  by  actual  starvation  before  I  was  really  aware 
of  it;  and  if  it  had  not  been  for  a  three-acre  field 
of  white  sweet  clover  I  should  have  lost  more  as 
this  patch  kept  about  fifty  hives  in  fair  condition. 
In  fact,  they  went  far  ahead  of  the  out-apiaries.  I 
have  sown  this  season  five  acres  more,  and  next 
spring  I  intend  to  put  out  about  forty  acres  more, 
as  I  can  rent  land  for  this  purpose  at  $1.50  per 
acre.  I  intend  to  put  out  mostly  the  yellow  variety, 
as  it  comes  in  just  at  a  time  when  there  is  nothing 
else,  and  the  blooming-period  is  longer;  but  the  three 
acres  of  white,  I  am  satisfied,  was  worth  to  me  this 
season  $30.00,  and  I  also  have  considerable  seed 
from  it.  R.  L.  SNODGRASS. 

Gordon,  Kan.,  Oct.  2,  1903. 

SWEET    CLOVER    AT    THE    OHIO    EXPERIMENT     STATION. 

Below  is  the  decision  of  the  Ohio  Experiment  Sta- 
tion, sent  out  in  the  form  of  a  newspaper  bulletin 
in  1898: 

Many  portions  of  Ohio  have  the  roadsides  and  other  sod- 
den or  "out  of  tilth"  lands  occupied  by  the  white  sweet- 
clover  plant  (Melilotus  alba,  L.).  Since  it  has  been  regard- 
ed as  a  noxious  weed  the  former  Ohio  Statute  placed  it  in 
the  same  list  of  proscribed  plants  with  Canada  thistle,  com- 
mon thistle,  oxeye  daisy,  wild  parsnip,  wild  carrot,  teasel, 
burdock,  and  cockle-burs. 

Under  the  operation  of  this  statute,  private  lands  might 
be  entered  upon  to  destroy  the  melilotus  growing  for  any 
purpose,  as  for  bee-pastures.  The  destruction  of  bee-pastures 
in  this  manner  actually  occurred  near  Delaware. 

Rightly,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  "How  shall  we  rank  sweet 
clover?"  To  answer  this  we  must  consider  where  sweet 
clover  grows  and  what  is  its  character.  Sweet  clover  grows 
spontaneously  along  tramped  roadsides,  even  to  the  wheel- 
ruts  in  abandoned  roadways,  and  in  tramped  or  sodden  land 
43 


anywhere.  When  found  in  meadow  lands  it  appears  not  to 
occur  except  when  the  ground  has  been  tramped  by  stock 
when  wet.  It  grows  by  preference  in  old  brick-yards.  It 
may  be  grown  in  fields  by  proper  tillage. 

The  character  of  sweet  clover  may  be  now  determined. 
Viewing  it  in  no  other  light  we  thus  see  that  sweet  clover 
grows  luxuriantly  in  places  where  few  or  no  other  plants 
flourish.  But  it  belongs  to  the  great  class  of  leguminous 
plants,  which  are  capable,  by  the  aid  of  other  organisms,  of 
fixing  atmospheric  nitrogen  and  storing  it  in  the  plant- 
tissues.  It  belongs  with  the  clovers,  and  it  may  thus  be  used 
to  improve  the  land  upon  which  it  grows,  and  this  appears 
to  be  its  mission.  It  occupies  lands  that  have  become  un- 
fitted for  good  growth  of  other  forage-plants.  Its  ranks, 
then,  is  as  a  useful  plant,  capable  of  increasing  fertility  of 
land. 

How  shall  sweet  clover  be  treated? 

The  character  determined,  the  treatment  to  be  accorded 
this  clover-plant  is  really  settled.  The  plant  is  the 
farmer's  friend,  to  be  utilized  and  not  to  be  outlawed.  The 
plant  grows  and  spreads  rapidly.  So  do  red  clover,  white 
clover,  timothy,  blue  grass,  and  other  forage-plants ;  but 
sweet  clover  grows  where  they  do  not ;  it  indicates  lack  of 
condition  for  the  others.  Viewed  in  this  way  it  is  to  be 
treated  as  preparing  unfitted  lands  for  other  crops. 

It  may  be  mown  a  short  time  before  coming  into  bloom  , 
and  cured  for  hay.  Stock  will  thrive  upon  it  if  confined  to 
it  until  accustomed  to  it.  The  roadsides,  if  taken  when  free 
from  dust,  may  be  made  almost  as  profitable  as  any  other 
area  in  clover  by  cutting  the  sweet  clover  and  *uring  for  hay. 
If  this  is  regularly  attended  to  while  stock  is  kept  from 
other  lands  that  it  invades,  sweet  clover  will  be  found  doing 
always  the  good  work  for  which  it  is  adapted. 

ITS    HABIT    OF    GROWING    ON    POOR    SOILS. 

Several  years  ago  the  B.  &  0.  R.  R.  opened  a  gravel-pit 
at  Belpre,  O.,  for  ballasting  the  track  and  constructing  fills. 
Sweet  clover  first  made  its  appearance  in  this  region,  so  far 
as  my  observation  goes,  on  the  fill  forming  the  approach  to 
the  Parkersburg  bridge.  This  fill  was  made  of  gravel  taken 
from  the  Belpre  gravel-pit. 

Last  week  as  I  passed  by  this  pit,  now  thirty  feet  deep, 
I  noticed  sweet  clover  growing  as  thick  as  it  could  stand  in 
the  bottom.  This  gravel  deposit  is  of  combined  glacial  and 
alluvial  origin  with  an  occasional  true  boulder,  brought  down 
by  the  river  from  the  glaciated  part  of  the  State.  Was  the 
seed  deposited  with  the  gravel  ?  Dana,  in  his  geology,  speaks 
of  plants  growing  from  sand  taken  from  the  bottom  of  a 
well  dug  a  few  miles  from  the  seacoast.  There  were  no 
plants  of  the  variety  growing  near  the  well,  but  they  were 
found  growing  on  the  seashore.  No  doubt  the  well  had 
tapped  soil  which  at  one  time  had  formed  the  sea-beach. 

[The  above  was  sent  us  May  1,  1902,  in  the  shape 
of  a  newspaper  clipping,  so  we  can  not  tell  what 


paper  it  was  taken  from.  It  emphasizes  the  fact 
made  by  Professor  Thorne,  of  our  experiment  sta- 
tion, that  sweet  clover,  as  a  rule,  occupies  ground 
where  no  other  plant  would  grow;  but  after  the 
sweet  clover  has  got  a  start,  and  has  been  plowed 
under,  various  farm  crops  may  be  grown  success- 
fully._Ea] 

SWEET    CLOVER    CONTRASTED    WITH     ALFALFA. 

The  following  paragraph  by  Mr.  W.  A.  Varian,  of 
Dublin,  in  regard  to  sweet  clover,  seems  so  pertinent 
and  well  written  that  I  copy  it  just  as  it  is. 

Sweet  clover,  or  Bokhara  clover,  as  it  is  variously  named 
in  the  United  States,  is  a  biennial.  When  grown  from  seed 
in  the  spring,  it  makes  a  fine  growth  for  hay,  or  green  feed 
for  cattle  in  the  late  summer ;  but  it  does  not  flower  in  its 
first  season  after  sowing.  The  second-year  growth  starts 
earlier  than  alfalfa  (lucerne),  so  there  is  a  good  "bite"  for 
stock  before  the  latter  shows.  In  fields  where  both  are 
growing,  these  young  plants  look  very  much  alike.  The 
melilotus,  however,  will  endure  as  much  drouth  as  alfalfa, 
while  it  will  do  well  on  a  much  wetter  soil  than  the  latter. 
It  cares  nothing  for  the  hard  winters  of  the  Western  United 
States.  I  believe  it  was  introduced  into  the  States  from 
Tartary  as  a  dry-weather  forage-plant  for  stock,  but  was  not 
taken  kindly  to  by  the  ranchmen,  and  has  since  spread  as  a 
weed  all  over  the  West,  from  Michigan  to  Colorado,  during 
the  past  twenty-eight  years.  This  result  comes  about  be- 
cause it  sprouts  in  spite  of  the  small  attempts  of  the  care- 
less, slovenly  farmer,  and  grows  wild  along  the  sides  of 
roads,  railways,  and  irrigation  ditches.  It  also  spreads  over 
neglected  corners  and  commons,  apparently  not  caring  how 
hard  or  poor  the  soil  is,  where  the  climate  suits,  for  I 
have  seen  it  growing  as  high  as  5  feet  when  in  flower.  The 
plant  bears  a  great  number  of  insignificant-looking  bunches 
of  little  white  flowers  which  give  out  a  strong  smell  of  honey, 
quite  perceptible  some  distance  away. — GLEANINGS,  JAN. 
1,  1901. 

HULLED     SWEET-CLOVER     SEED     SETS     AS     QUICKLY     AS     AL- 
FALFA,  ALSIKE,   ETC.;    THE   HULLED 
REQUIRES    SIX   MONTHS. 

The  articles  in  GLEANINGS  on  the  subject  of  sweet 
clover  are  very  interesting.  I  bought  a  few  pounds 
of  The  A.  I.  Root  Co.  in  the  fall  of  1909.  The 
yellow  was  hulled,  the  white  was  unhulled.  I  sowed 
both  varieties  in  September.  The  yellow  hulled  seed 

45 


came  up  in  ten  days,  but  the  white  showed  no  life. 
On  page  828,  June  15,  1907,  J.  A.  Green  says  the  white 
hulled  seed  came  up  very  promptly,  while  the  yellow 
unhulled  came  up  best  the  following  spring.  1 
think  our  combined  experience  shows  that  hulled 
sweet  clover  seed  of  either  variety  will  germinate 
just  as  quickly  as  alfalfa,  alsike,  or  any  of  the  clover 
family,  while  the  unhulled  seed  requires  six  months, 
or  time  to  rot  the  hull  before  it  comes  up,  thereby 
removing  the  bar  that  has  been  following  sweet  clover 
— that  is,  that  it  invariably  takes  six  months  to 
germinate. 

As  clover  honey  granulates  quite  readily  the 
apiarist  is  fortunate  if  he  lives  where  gallberry 
(holly),  mountain  sage,  or  snowdrop  grows.  The 
snowdrop  grows  on  the  open  hills  or  in  dense  forest 
growth  in  my  locality.  It  is  a  fine-growing  shrub, 
never  over  four  feet  high,  with  a  small  pink  bell- 
shaped  flower  that  produces  an  abundance  of  water- 
white  honey  in  June.  The  seed  is  produced  in  white 
berries  that  hang  on  all  winter.  I  have  a  bottle 
of  this  honey  mixed  with  clover  three  years  old  that 
has  frozen  repeatedly,  and  has  just  commenced  to 
granulate.  P.  F.  GEORGE. 

Eraser,  Idaho,  Feb.  16,  1910. 


Sweet-clover  Notes  from  Dr.  C.  C.  Miller, 
Marengo,  111. 

Last  summer  our  cow-pasture  was,  perhaps,  one- 
fourth  covered  with  sweet  clover.  It  grew  rank,  but 
the  cow  didn't  seem  to  care  for  it.  Still,  there  was 
so  much  of  it  that  it  would  hardly  be  noticed  if  she 
ate  quite  a  bit.  But  the  grass  was  also  luxuriant 
and  abundant,  and  she  evidently  preferred  that.  By 
and  by  there  came  a  dry  time,  a  very  dry  time,  and 
pastures  were  brown.  Then  it  was  that  the  sweet 
clover  showed  its  value.  It  remained  cheerfully  green 
while  the  grass  about  it  was  dry  and  parched.  It 
had,  however,  run  up  to  six  feet  and  more  in  height; 

46 


I 


Fig.  2— Luxuriant  growth  of  sweet  clover  at  Dr.  Miller's. 

and  if  you  stop  and  look  meditatively  at  a  solid 
mass  of  sweet  clover  six  feet  high  you'll  realize  that 
there's  a  lot  of  feed  in  it.  Gradually  it  was  reduced 
in  height  (although,  of  course,  the  cow  didn't  eat 
from  the  top  down)  until  finally  it  was  reduced  to  a 
height  of  two  feet  or  so,  as  you  will  see  by  Fig.  1 
from  a  photo  taken  Sept.  3,  1906.  Compare  this  with 

48 


The  Purity  of  the 

SWEET-CLOVER   SEED 

Sold  by  The  A.  I.  Root  Co.  is  Attested  to  by  the 
U.  S.  Government 


READ  THIS  LETTER: 

Brooks^ille,  Ky.,  March  13,  1911. 
The  A.  1.  Root  Co.,  Medina,  Ohio. 

Gentli-ruen: — Borne  lime  agx»  I  sent  to  you  for  a 
samrle  of  your  white  and  yellow  sweet-c'o^tr  seed. 
After  receiving  the  samples  I  sent  them  to  Washing- 
ton, D.  C.  The  yellow  hullM  tested  99.71  per  cent  of 
pure  s?eed;  the  pnhulled  white  tested  99.11  per  cent  of 
pure  seed.  I  think  that  is  fine.  1  inclose  you  the  sam- 
ple that  you  sent  me.  and  want  you  to  send  me  80  Ibs. 
of  the  same  lot  that  this  sample  is  out  of,  or  some 
equally  good.  Send  the  s^ed  by  freight. 

Yours  truly,          H.  A.  JBTT. 

We  have  a  booklet,  published  for  free  distribu- 
tion, which    tells  THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 
SWEET  CLOVER.    Ask  for  your  copy. 

PRICES 
In  lots  of—    1  ib. 
Hulled  Yellow  Annual 

(Melilotus  Indica) ,  Ib.    17c 
Hulled  YellowBiennial 
(MelilQtu*  officinalis) . 

Hulled  White 

Unhulled  White  (M ell- 
lotus  alb")  per  Ib 

The  prices  are  all  subject  to  market  changes. 
As  to  the  comparative  value  of  the  different 
varieties,  we  will  say  that  the  white,  or  Meli- 
lotuft  alba,  is  most  common,  and  therefore  the 
best  known.  The  yellow  is  desirable  because 
it  begins  blooming  usually  from  two  to  four 
weeks  earlier  than  the  white.  As  to  the  two 
varieties  of  yellow,  one  of  the  experiment 
stations  has  said  there  was  a  distinction  with- 
out a  difference. 

The  A.  I.  Root  Company,  Medina,  O. 


10  Ib.    25  Ib.    100  Ib. 
15C       14c       13C 


20c 
25c 


18c 
22c 


17c 
21c 


16c 
20c 


17c      15c      14c      ISc 


MAY  6,    191  1 


3h  was 

is   not 

id  that 

mding, 

elected 

lid  the 

I  held 

From 

I  may 

that's 

r  than 
throw- 
5  eaten 
tender 
:s  it  of 
>wth  is 
present 
d  have 
t. 

us  the 
h  you; 
/hy  the 
single 
a  yard 
te  only 
,ommis- 
>uld  be 
t  some 
cucum- 
L  honey 
i  stored 
>  down 

m   that 


)  much 
u  how. 
,he  bees 

would  go  through  till  clover  harvest  without  any 
feeding.  But  at  the  opening  of  the  harvest  there 
would  be  a  good  deal  of  empty  space  in  the  brood- 

49 


• 


Fig.  2— L 

and    if   yo 

mass  of  s~v 

there's  a  L 

in  height 

from  the  tujj  uu»»u;  uiuu  iiiiany  it  was  "reduced  to  a 

height  of  two  feet  or  so,  as  you  will  see  by  Fig    1 

from  a  photo  taken  Sept.  3,  1906.    Compare  this  with 

48 


the  height  of  the  single  stalk  in  Fig:  2,  which  was 
taken  the  same  day.  But  the  comparison  is  not 
entirely  fair,  for  No.  2  grew  on  rich  low  ground  that 
had  the  wash  from  the  elevated  ground  surrounding, 
and  this  stalk  growing  alone  was  especially  selected 
on  account  of  its  unusual  height.  I  was  afraid  the 
slender  top  might  not  show  in  the  picture,  so  I  held 
a  dried  weed  beside  it  at  the  same  height.  From 
the  ground  to  the  top  was  just  nine  feet.  I  may 
have  seen  taller  sweet  clover,  but  I'm  sure  that's 
the  tallest  I  ever  measured. 

That  the  cow  does  not  eat  it  down  lower  than 
shown  is  a  good  thing,  for  each  plant  is  bushy,  throw- 
ing out  fresh  growth  on  all  sides  as  fast  as  eaten 
off,  thus  furnishing  a  constant  supply  of  tender 
growtn  until  freezing  weather.  It  also  makes  it  of 
greater  value  for  the  bees,  for  the  fresh  growth  is 
always  blossom  growth,  and  if  you  had  been  present 
at  the  time  the  picture  was  taken  it  would  have 
reminded  you  of  bees  working  on  buckwheat. 

Some  one  will  say:  "But  I  thought  you  told  us  the 
honey  crop  of  1906  was  an  entire  failure  with  you; 
and  if  the  bees  were  so  busy  on  sweet  clover  why  the 
failure?"  My  dear  sir,  a  pasture-field  for  a  single 
cow  is  not  a  very  large  field  of  operation  for  a  yard 
full  of  bees.  To  be  sure,  that  was  not  the  only 
sweet  clover  within  reach,  but  the  road  commis- 
sioners took  care  that  not  much  of  it  should  be 
allowed  to  blossom  on  the  highways.  Yet  some 
credit  should  be  given  to  sweet  clover  and  cucum- 
bers, for,  besides  having  the  hives  heavy  with  honey 
for  winter,  I  had  some  combs  filled  that  I  have  stored 
away  for  next  spring.  Just  wait  till  I  go  down 
cellar,  and  I'll  tell  you  how  many  there  are.  .  .  . 
There  are  248,  most  of  them  full,  and  from  that 
down  to  half  full. 

I  count  those  combs  much  the  same  as  so  much 
white-clover  honey  in  sections.  I'll  tell  you  how. 
The  hives  are,  I  think,  heavy  enough  so  that  the  bees 
would  go  through  till  clover  harvest  without  any 
feeding.  But  at  the  opening  of  the  harvest  there 
would  be  a  good  deal  of  empty  space  in  the  brood- 

49 


chamber,  and  that  space  would  have  to  be  filled  be- 
fore the  bees  would  devote  much  attention  to  the 
supers.  Now,  if  I  take  away  combs  that  are  empty, 
or  nearly  so,  replacing  them  with  these  reserve  combs, 
don't  you  see  that  every  pound  of  such  honey  thus 
given  means  another  pound  of  white-clover  honey  in 
ti,.e  sections?  Besides,  it's  a  "dreadful*  comfortable 
feeling  to  know  that  you  are  fully  provided  against 
any  contingency  if  any  colony  in  spring  should  be 
snort  of  stores. 

I  have  always  thought  I  didn't  care  for  yellow  swt  t 
clover,  because  it  comes  two  to  four  weeks  in  r  i- 
vance  of  the  white,  right  when  white  clover  is  doi.ig 
its  best.  But  last  season  made  me  change  my 
mind;  for  white  clover  didn't  do  its  best,  although 
blooming  abundantly;  and  if  the  yellow  is  an  un- 
failing yielder  the  same  as  white  sweet  clover  .(and 
I  suppose  it  is),  then  the  yellow  would  come  in  very 
handy. 

In  the  eyes  of  the  general  public,  sweet  clover  is 
a  very  noxious  weed  whose  first  encroachment  must 
be  carefully  watched,  lest  it  get  a  foothold  and 
spread  persistently  and  promiscuously.  The  great 
objection  in  the  eyes  of  the  bee-keeper  is  that  it  is 
so  hard  to  get  a  stand  of  it.  I  have  tried  several 
times  to  get  a  solid  field  of  it,  but  have  not  yet  suc- 
ceeded. This  cow-pasture  comes  the  nearest  to  a  suc- 
cess of  anything  I've  »had,  and  I  did  not  try  to  get 
a  stand  there. 

I'd  like  to  have  a  solid  field  of  it  so  I  could  have 
some  hay  that  was  nothing  but  sweet  clover.  My 
stock  care  more  for  it  dried  than  green,  and  I  suppose 
tnat  is  the  general  experience.  The  horses  care 
more  for  it  than  the  cow,  but  other  cows  may  care 
more  for  it  than  ours. 

SWEET  CLOVER  IN  GERMANY. 

Friend  A.  I.,  I  send  you  a  picture  out  of  Centralblatt 
to  show  you  how  sweet  clover  grows  in  the  German 
language.  It  was  windy  when  the  picture  was  taken, 
so  the  plants  don't  show  as  well  as  they  might;  but 
Herr  Reepen  says  the  average  height  of  the  stalks 

50 


back  of  the  man  and  boy  is  9  feet  10  inches,  and  the 
one  stalk  that  Herr  Wegener  is  holding  in  his  hand 
is  10  feet  8  inches  high. 

But  what  I  wanted  you  more  particularly  to  notice 
is  the  growth  of  the  potatoes  this  side  of  the  man  and 
boy.  Those  in  the  foreground,  as  you  see,  have 
made  a  poor  growth,  while  the  three  rows  next  the 
sweet  clover  have  grown  most  luxuriantly.  And  yet 
they  were  planted  with  the  same  seed  and  at  the 
same  time.  Herr  Reepen  thinks  the  difference  must 
come  from  the  nitrogen  gathered  by  the  sweet  clover 
It  seems  as  if  there  must  have  been  some  other  dif- 
ierence,  perhaps  accidental,  but  still  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  make  some  experiment  to  see  whether  any- 
thing like  the  same  difference  might  be  made  in  this 
country.  I  commend  the  case  to  your  consideration. 

C.  C.  MILLER. 

Marengo,  111.,  April  15,  1899. 

[I  should  be  exceedingly  glad  to  submit  to  our  read- 
ers the  picture  sent  us.  It  looks  to  me  as  though  the 
ranker  and  stronger  growth  of  the  potatoes  close  up  to 
the  sweet  clover  may  be  accounted  for  partly  by  the 
shade.  If  the  soil  was  sandy  or  gravelly,  the  sun  was 
likely  too  hot  for  them  in  the  open  field;  and  this 
great  mass  of  sweet  clover  would  not  only  shade  the 
potatoes,  but  if  there  were  an  abundance  of  rain  it 
might  also  help  to  keep  them  damp  longer  than  those 
standing  out  in  the  full  blaze  of  the  sun.  I  wish  our 
German  people  would  tell  us  through  Dr.  Miller,  or  in 
some  other  way,  how  much  sweet  clover  is  worth  for 
feeding  stock  in  the  "Fatherland."] 

Farmers'  Bulletin  No.  18  says  of  sweet  clover:  "As 
a  restorative  crop  for  yellow  loam  and  white  lime 
lands  this  plant  has  no  superior;  and  for  black  prairie 
soils  it  has  no  equal."  [In  some  parts  of  the  great 
West  there  are  what  are  called  "alkali  lands."  Irri- 
gation for  a  series  of  years  has  forced  the  alkali 
out  of  the  soil  to  the  surface,  with  the  result  that 
•j  kills  everything  except  pear  trees,  salt  weeds  and 
sweet  clover.  I  know  a  spot  in  Western  Colorado 
— perhaps  the  finest  location  in  the  world — where 


there  are  hundreds  and  perhaps  thousands  of  acres 
of  alkali  land  covered  with  nothing  but  sweet 
clover,  for  nothing  else  will  grow.  A  bee-keeper 
wuom  I  know  located  in  that  vicinity  struck  a  bo- 
nanza, for  no  ranchman  or  farmer  will  invade  his 
territory — at  least  not  till  all  the  other  available 
land  is  taken  up.  The  time  may  come,  when  land 
is  scarce,  when  the  ranchman  will  be  called  on  to 
use  the  alkali  land  and  grow  sweet  clover  for  a 
hay  crop.  Then,  perhaps,  the  world  will  wake 
up  and  discover  that  it  is  not  an  enemy  but  a 
friend. — ED.] 

DR.  C.  C.  MILLER  in  GLEANINGS. 


Clippings  from  The  Rural  New-Yorker. 

There  has  been  a  great  development  in  public  opin- 
ion regarding  the  value  of  sweet  clover.  Up  to  this 
season  most  farmers  who  ever  saw  it  growing  have 
regarded  it  as  a  weed.  Many  have  seen  it  growing 
along  the  line  of  railroads  and  classed  it  with  burdock 
or  ragweed.  It  now  appears  that  sweet  clover  is  one 
of  the  hardiest  of  the  legumes,  that  it  will  grow  in 
poor  soils  where  other  clovers  die,  and  that  it  is 
one  of  the  best  crops  to  introduce  alfalfa.  The  sweet 
clover  is  winning  its  way  to  a  fair  place  among  the 
plants  to  be  tested. — March  19,  1909. 

Sweet  clover  is  a  wayside  weed.  Most  people 
think  it  a  pest.  We  are  beginning  to  see  that  it  has 
noble  qualities.  An  orphan  asylum  in  an  Ohio  city 
refuses  to  tell  people  adopting  children  from  it  any- 
thing about  the  parentage  of  the  orphans.  Whether 
sprung  from  wayside  weeds  or  from  the  budded  plants 
of  hereditary  culture,  no  one  about  the  child  knows. 
The  results  seem  to  show  that  most  of  our  common 
human  weeds  are  precious  plants  so  long  as  no  one 
can  call  them  weeds  and  prove  it.  To  have  wasted 
the  melilotus  for  so  long  is  a  blunder,  perhaps;  but 
how  much  greater  the  tragedy  when  we  recklessly 

52 


tag  a  human  being  as  bad  and  thus  make  him  so. 
And  are  we  not  doing  this  all  the  time? 

Perhaps  in  the  last  analysis  there  are  no  really 
noxious  plants — nor  bad  people. 

SWEET  CLOVER  IN  ILLINOIS. 

Last  year,  in  an  article  headed  "Sweet  Clover,"  I. 
A.  Thayer  suggests  that  land  might  be  inoculated  for 
alfalfa  by  the  previous  production  of  a  crop  of  sweet 
clover,  because  of  the  fact  that  the  sweet  clover  bac- 
teria appear  to  be  identical  with  the  alfalfa  bacteria. 
I  beg  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  land  which 
needs  to  be  inoculated  for  alfalfa  also  needs  to  be 
inoculated  for  sweet  clover.  On  the  ordinary  prairie 
soil  in  Illinois  we  have  more  than  doubled  the  yield 
of  sweet  clover  by  proper  inoculation,  and  the  inocu- 
lated crop  is  also  very  much  richer  in  nitrogen  than 
that  grown  without  inoculation.  It  should  be  re- 
membered that  the  natural  means  by  which  sweet 
clover  becomes  disseminated  will  commonly  provide 
for  the  dissemination  of  infected  soil  as  well  as  for 
the  dissemination  of  the  seed.  Thus,  if  sweet  clover 
is  growing  along  the  roadside  and  some  seeds  are 
picked  up  by  a  wagon  wheel  and  dropped  off  a  mile 
or  two  farther  on,  the  infected  soil  is  likely  to  be 
carried  with  the  seed.  If  the  seed  is  carried  by 
running  water  from  one  place  to  another,  of  course, 
the  bacteria  are  likely  to  be  carried  with  it. 

University  of  Illinois.  CYEIL  G.  HOPKINS. 

SWEET  CLOVER,  MELILOTUS  ALBA. 

This  plant  has  interested  me  for  several  years.  In 
this  vicinity  are  large  patches  of  it,  and  I  have 
been  studying  it  in  its  growth,  its  nitrogen  content, 
and  its  bacteria.  In  places  along  railroad  fills  of  slag 
cinder,  banks  of  gravel,  dumping-grounds  around 
lime-stone  quarries,  and  in  excavations  where  it  would 
be  thought  there  could  be  no  fertility,  and  in  almost 
any  place  where  seed  had  lodged,  except  on  sour  clay, 
I  have  seen  it  growing  as  thriftily  as  any  other  plant 
on  the  most  favorable  soil;  and  in  many  of  these 
places  the  ground  was  so  poor  that  not  another  green 

53 


thing  appeared.  In  most  of  these  places  the  growtn 
was  very  heavy,  much  of  it  six  feet  tall.  I  would 
guess  that  in  such  places  it  would  yield  three  or  four 
tons  per  acre  of  the  dried  plant.  In  nitrogen  con- 
tent I  find  that  it  stands  with  alfalfa  and  the  vetches. 
I  discover  that  it  not  only  furnishes  a  rich  field 
for  bees,  but  that  horses  are  fond  of  its  leaves  and 
branches.  I  have  wondered  why  we  could  not  make 
a  green-manure  crop  of  it.  Doubtless  we  would  be 
compelled  to  plow  it  in  long  before  it  reached  its  full 
growth.  It  seems  to  me  that  there  are  great  possi- 
bilities in  it. 

in  the  summer  of  1905  I  made  this  test:  Taking  the 
hint  from  Prof.  Hopkins,  after  sowing  my  fourth  field 
01  alfalfa  I  sowed  a  strip  a  rod  wide  across  the  center 
of  the  field  with  soil  taken  from  a  sweet-clover  patch, 
at  the  rate  of  400  or  500  pounds  per  acre.  This  strip 
was  a  fair  sample  of  the  rest  of  the  field,  which  was 
not  inoculated.  Last  summer  I  cut  more  than  twice 
the  hay  from  this  strip  that  came  from  a  similar  area 
on  either  side  of  it,  and  far  more  nodules  were  found 
on  the  roots.  It  looks  very  much  as  though  its 
bacteria  were  identical  with  those  of  alfalfa,  as  Prof. 
Hopkins  claims.  If  that  be  a  fact,  then  a  good  prepa- 
ration for  an  alfalfa  crop  would  be  the  production 
of  a  sweet-clover  crop,  plowing  it  in  during  the  fall 
and  sowing  alfalfa  the  next  spring.  If  any  have  ex- 
perimented with  this  plant  there  are  a  whole  lot  of 
us  wno  would  like  to  hear  from  them.  And  if  you 
have  not,  why  don't  you?  I.  A.  THAYEB. 

Pennsylvania,  April  20,  1907. 

SWEET-CLOVER  NOTE. 

On  page  338  there  is  inquiry  about  sweet  clover. 
It  is  considered  a  weed  here,  taking  possession  of  the 
roads,  but  it  is  very  little  trouble  in  cultivated  fields, 
as  it  is  nearly  as  easy  to  exterminate  by  cultivation 
as  red  clover,  unless  you  have  some  low-lying  land 
where  the  seed  is  washed  on  from  higher  ground 
not  cultivated.  It  is  a  very  prolific  seeder,  more  so 
than  any  other  clover  I  know  of,  and  I  should  not 
wonder  if,  under  favorable  conditions,  it  would  yield 

54 


20  bushels  of  seed  to  the  acre.  Last  year  I  made  some 
hay  from  a  low-lying  piece  of  ground  of  less  than 
an  acre  in  sweet  clover.  I  had  sown  the  strip  in  tim- 
othy the  year  before;  but:  as  the  seed  of  the  clover 
was  washed  on  it  from  higher  ground,  the  clover 
choked  the  timothy,  and  so  I  went  and  cut  it  for  hay. 
It  made  about  three  loads,  but  it  is  very  difficult  to 
cure,  as  the  stems  persist  in  staying  sappy  for  days 
after  the  leaves  crumble  off  when  you  touch  it.  It 
has  to  be  made  young  or  it  will  be  so  hard  that  horses 
cannot  eat  it,  let  alone  cows.  I  fed  it  to  horses,  and 
they  seemed  to  relish  it;  cows  also  like  it  green 
in  pasture  as  long  as  it  is  young,  say  not  more  than 
a  foot  high;  but  they  have  to  become  used  to  it,  as 
some  cows  will  not  touch  it  at  first.  Most  cows  like 
it  as  hay  at  first  trial.  C.  L.  R. 

Illinois,  May  18,  1907. 

SWEET   CLOVER   IN   THE   SOUTH. 

In  your  issue  of  April  25  a  Pennsylvania  corre- 
spondent has  a  good  word  in  behalf  of  melilotus.  This 
plant  in  the  North  and  West  is  usually  regarded  as 
a  weed.  In  the  South  the  white-flowered  variety  is 
regarded  with  much  favor  as  a  forage  plant,  and 
also  for  grazing.  It  is  largely  grown  in  certain  sec- 
tions 01  this  State  and  Alabama,  in  the  limestone  re- 
gions, and  when  the  plant  is  mowed  at  the  proper 
stage,  before  there  is  too  much  wood  developed  in 
it,  the  quality  of  the  hay  is  considered  second  to 
none  of  the  clover  family,  alfalfa  not  excepted.  It 
thrives  to  advantage  only  on  lands  strongly  im- 
pregnated with  lime.  Here  it  is  at  its  best,  and 
reaches  its  greatest  perfection.  It  will  take  root  and 
grow  luxuriantly  on  bare  lime  spots  where  there  is 
no  other  soil  on  the  surface  of  the  ground.  In  time, 
left  to  itself,  it  will  completely  hide  these  unsightly 
bald  places,  and  corn  and  other  field  crops  can  be 
grown  profitably  on  the  land.  It  has  an  enormous 
tap  root  that  penetrates  deep  down  into  the  subsoil 
and  gains  nourishment  from  plant  food  denied  to 
other  leguminous  plants.  It  reseeds  itself  every  two 
years;  but  if  the  plant  is  mowed  (in  this  climate  at 


any  rate)  or  grazed,  so  that  no  seed  can  develop,  the 
plant  seems  to  lose  its  natural  tendency  to  give  up 
life  after  two  years'  growth,  and  will  continue  to 
produce  good  crops  for  several  years  in  succession. 
It  has  been  fully  ten  years  since  I  have  sown  any 
melilotus  seed,  and  yet  I  find  it  every  year  more  or 
less  plentiful  and  luxuriant  on  my  Johnson  grass  and 
Bermuda  grass  meadows.  Of  course  the  presence 
ot  this  plant  on  the  lands  named  is  highly  bene- 
ficial to  these  meadows,  the  coarse,  deeply  penetrating 
tap  roots  of  the  melilotus  opening  up  the  compact 
soil  and  thus  conducing  to  the  better  growth  of  botti 
Johnson  and  Bermuda  grasses.  Hay  made  from  meli- 
lotus when  the  plant  is  in  just  the  right  stage  of 
growth  for  best  results,  and  properly  cured,  is  a  hay 
that  is  in  every  sense  equal  to  the  best  quality  cow- 
pea  vine  or  any  of  the  clover  family. 
Mississippi,  June  15,  1907.  EDWIN  MONTGOMERY. 

SWEET  CLOVER  FOR  MULCH. 

In  regard  to  growing  mulch  crops  for  straw- 
berries, I  have  never  found  anything  better  than  the 
sweet  clover  growing  along  the  roadsides  and  on 
railroad  embankments.  •  Wherever  it  has  been  grow- 
ing for  a  year  or  two  it  has  all  other  weeds  choked 
out,  thereby  preventing  the  bringing  in  of  other 
weed  seeds.  I  cut  it  when  first  in  blossom.  It 
stands  then  about  four  to  six  feet  high.  After  let- 
ting it  lie  for  a  week  to  dry  out  I  haul  it  in  while 
wet  with  dew,  to  save  the  leaves,  and  stack  it  up 
ready  for  spreading  over  the  strawberry  beds  in  the 
fall  (about  one-quarter  acre).  Of  course  larger  grow- 
ers may  not  find  it  plentiful  enough  to  supply  their 
needs,  but  why  not  raise  it?  It  seems  to  thrive  almost 
anywhere,  even  in  the  cinders  and  stones  of  rail- 
road embankments.  I  believe  I  could  raise  a  Is  ger 
bulk  of  it  on  a  given  piece  of  land  than  any  c,rher 
crop  for  mulch,  corn  not  excepted.  Furthermore, 
it  lies  not  so  flat  or  heavy  on  the  berries  as  corn- 
stalks, catches  more  snow  on  account  of  its  spreading 
branches,  and  is  heavy  enough  not  to  blow  away. 

Aug.  24,  1907.  G.  H. 

56 


SWEET  CLOVES  AND  ALFALFA. 

In  reply  to  your  request  for  experience  in  inocu- 
lating alfalfa  with  sweet  clover,  page  652,  I  will  say 
that,  while  my  experience  is  rather  limited,  still  I 
have  experimented  with  them  for  several  years.  A 
number  of  years  ago  I  secured  a  trial  package  of  sweet 
ciover  and  sowed  it  in  the  spring  on  a  rather  thin 
clay  soil.  It  grew  very  well,  but  I  found  that  it  did 
not  develop  tubercles  on  the  roots.  After  the  second 
year  the  ground  was  reseeded  from  seed  falling  upon 
the  ground.  This  crop  developed  tubercles  on  the 
roots,  and  grew  six  to  seven  feet  high.  The  seed  got 
scattered  near  our  yard  and  grew  from  year  to  year. 
Soil  taken  from  about  the  roots  of  the  sweet  clover 
was  scattered  over  a  plot  of  alfalfa  which  had  failed 
to  develop  tubercles,  and  was  looking  rather  sickly. 
In  a  few  weeks  the  alfalfa  changed  to  a  dark  green 
and  grew  rapidly.  Upon  examination  I  found  that, 
where  the  soil  from  the  sweet  clover  had  been  put, 
the  tubercles  were  thick  on  the  alfalfa  roots,  but 
on  a  part  where  there  was  no  soil  scattered  from  the 
sweet  clover  the  alfalfa  looked  yellow,  and  no  tu- 
bercles were  found.  I  then  inoculated  the  remainder 
of  the  plot,  and  could  notice  an  improvement  in  the 
growth  of  alfalfa  in  about  two  weeks.  A.  J.  LEGG. 

West  Virginia,  Sept.  28,  1907. 

SWEET   CLOVER  AS    STOCK   FOOD. 

The  following  is  suggested  by  reading  Mr.  Legg*s 
article  above,  "Sweet  Clover  and  Alfalfa."  There 
are  wrong  impressions  regarding  the  plant.  Here  it 
grows  very  rank  on  the  roadsides,  and  in  some  fields. 
I  used  to  think,  like  Mr.  L/egg,  that  stock  would  not 
eat  it,  for  I  often  took  care  to  notice  when  driving 
along  a  road  on  the  sides  of  which  it  grew  as  high 
as  a  horse's  back,  whether  the  droves  of  stock,  cattle 
principally,  fed  on  it,  and  never  did  I  see  that  a 
plant  had  been  nipped.  Later,  in  a  field  where  a  lot  of 
large  steers  were  pasturing,  the  sweet  clover  grew  in 
great  abundance,  and  the  cattle,  by  feeding  on  it,  had 
cut  it  down  to  about  knee-high.  It  had  made  a*large 

57 


growth  before  they  began  to  feed  on  it,  and  below 
the  height  mentioned  it  was  too  coarse  and  hard  to 
be  palatable.  Seldom  now  do  we  see  it  in  pasture 
fields;  but  on  the  roadsides  adjoining  these  fields  it 
grows  in  abundance,  and  would  undoubtedly  grow  in 
the  fields  if  the  stock  let  it  alone.  When  driving 
lambs  along  the  highway  I  Live  noticed  that  they 
eat  it  as  readily  as  the  grasses  that  grow  with  it, 
blue  grass,  etc.  Men  owning  horses  in  my  nearest 
village  I  have  known  to  cut  it  from  the  roadsides  and 
haul  it  to  their  stables  and  feed  it  to  their  horses. 
At  first  they  refused  it,  but  soon  learned  to  relish  it. 
I  know  of  a  timothy  meadow  being  cut  this  year 
that  had  growing  with  it  an  equal  bulk  of  sweet 
clover.  This  was  stored  in  sheds,  and  will  be  fed 
out  to  cattle  this  winter.  In  the  same  field  in  which 
this  timothy  grew  last  year,  after  wheat,  there  came 
on  five  or  six  acres  a  very  rank  growth  of  sweet 
clover.  This  year  there  grew  a  very  excellent  crop 
01  corn  on  the  same  land.  Alfalfa  grows  on  all  the 
land  about  here  without  soil  inoculation.  But  unless 
the  land  is  well  drained,  naturally  or  artificially,  it 
will  winter-kill.  As  regards  sweet  clover,  I  would 
gladly  have  more  of  it  grow  on  my  farm  than  the 
SLOCK  and  cultivation  will  allow  to  grow. 

Ross  Co.,  Ohio,  Oct.,  1907.  JOHN  M.  JAMISON. 

SWEET    CLOVER    AS    PASTURAGE. 

Though  quite  a  lot  of  sweet  clover  grows  here,  at 
present  it  is  mostly  along  the  roadsides,  so  that  we 
do  not  get  much  value  out  of  it  for  pasture.  However, 
it  is  well  known  by  the  farmers  here  that  when 
stock  are  occasionally  pastured  on  the  roads  they 
greedily  eat  the  sweet  clover,  even  when  quite  large. 
I  do  not  think  it  will  pay  to  make  a  pasture  exclu- 
sively of  this  clover,  for  it  requires  conditions  quite 
similar  to  those  under  which  alfalfa  will  thrive.  It 
is  a*  biennial,  dies,  root  and  all,  after  ripening  seed, 
and,  though  the  seed  will  live  in  or  on  the  soil  for 
years,  and  grow  under  suitable  conditions  yet,  because 
if  its  biennial  character,  pasturing  would  certainly 

58 


kill  it  out  in  two  or  three  seasons.  Perhaps  the 
roots  would  live  in  the  soil  and  grow  continuously 
if  kept  pastured  down  so  as  not  to  go  to  seed,  but  not 
so  closely  that  the  plants  would  be  killed  out.  Some 
recent  observations  of  some  patches  here  seem  to 
confirm  this  view  of  the  matter;  and  if  such  be  the 
case  this  plant  will  pay  well  as  a  pasture  plant  where 
alfalfa  is  not  a  profitable  crop.  Like  alfalfa,  sweet 
ciover  needs  drainage  and  lime,  and  soils  rich  in 
phosphates  and  potash.  In  food  value  it  compares 
well  with  alfalfa,  according  to  the  few  analyses  that 
have  been  made.  The  bacteria  that  inhabit  the  root 
nodules  of  sweet  clover  and  alfalfa  are  identical,  or 
at  least  are  capable  of  living  on  either  kind  of  plant, 
and  for  this  reason  sweet  clover  is  a  good  plant  to 
precede  alfalfa,  to  insure  the  proper  inoculation  of 
the  soil.  We  wish  that  more  of  this  clover  were  in 
our  fields,  pasture  fields  especially,  and  anywhere  else 
where  it  will  do  us  more  good  than  on  the  roadsides. 
The  seed  may  be  sown  in  August  or  February,  and 
may  get  start  enough  to  be  pastured  or  cut  for  hay 
the  following  summer.  There  is  getting  to  be  a 
better  understanding  of  sweet  clover.  It  is  no  longer 
regarded  by  farmers  as  a  pestiferous  weed,  to  be 
fought  and  exterminated  at  any  cost,  but  is  regarded 
now  as  a  friend,  and  the  danger  is  that  we  may  ex- 
pect too  much  from  it.  I  am  informed  that  it  is  used 
for  both  hay  and  pasture  in  some  of  the  Southern 
States,  and  if  any  of  our  readers  there  have  had  ex- 
perience with  it  as  a  field  crop  will  they  tell  us  what 
they  think  of  this  clover?  W.  E.  DUCKWALL. 

Highland  Co.,  0.,  May  22,  1909. 

SWEET-CLOVER   NOTES. 

There  has  been  some  little  discussion  lately  about 
ttie  value  of  sweet  clover  for  stock  food,  or  for  im- 
proving the  soil.  It  was  reported  that  the  seed  could 
not  be  obtained,  but  several  of  the  seedsmen  offer  It 
— mostly  thus  far  for  bee  pasture. 

SWEET-CLOVER    SOIL    AND    ALFALFA. 

And  as  sweet  clover  is  everywhere  growing  along  the 
roadsides  there  is  no  reason  why  men  there  should  not 
59 


inoculate  when  first  they  sow  the  seed.  It  is  a  simply  done 
thing — just  a  quantity  of  soil,  say  100  Ibs.,  mixed  carefully 
with  20  pounds  of  seed,  sown  together  and  instantly  har- 
rowed in  will  give  the  desired  inoculation.  Early  August  or 
July  seems  a  good  time  to  sow  alfalfa  here,  though  some 
sow  in  spring  with  success.  A  man  could  get  this  inoculated 
earth  in  wagonloads  and  put  it  on  with  a  manure-spreader, 
if  he  chose,  and  all  the  better,  so  he  harrowed  it  in  promptly. 
We  were  interested  in  studying  sweet  clover,  as  it  grew  along 
the  roadsides  and  in  waste  places.  Every  man's  hand  is 
against  it  (save  the  bee-keepers),  yet  it  is  evident  that, 
even  here  cattle  graze  it,  for  we  saw  none  in  the  pastures. 
It  had  been  grazed  down  close  there.  Not  that  it  is  worth 
while  sowing  it  in  Iowa,  but  there  are  many  regions  where 
it  can  be  grown  with  profit,  I  am  sure.  We  will  sow  it  in 
Louisiana,  for  instance. 

This  clipping  is  from  a  recent  Breeders'  Gazette, 
and  is  part  of  an  article  by  Joe  Wing.  Mr.  Wing 
recently  told  me  that  much  sweet  clover  was  growing 
in  the  Gulf  States,  and  that  some  preferred  it  to 
alfalfa.  He  is  intending  to  sow  it  on  the  Louisiana 
plantation  in  a  mule  pasture,  but  intends  to  sow  burr 
clover  with  it.  For  hay,  he  says  it  must  be  sown 
thickly  and  cut  earlier  than  alfalfa. 

W.  E.  DUCKWAIX. 

WHERE    SWEET    CLOVER    COI^ES    FROM. 

Some  years  ago  the  earth  from  the  excavation  of  Jerome 
Park  Reservoir,  New  York  city,  was  used  to  fill  in  salt 
meadows  near  Pelham  Park.  The  material  was  practically 
all  subsoil,  rocks,  gravel,  and  clay.  For  the  past  three  years 
or  longer  this  has  been  covered  with  an  almost  unbroken 
growth  of  sweet  clover,  50  acres  of  it  or  more.  The  average 
height  is  six  feet,  though  many  stalks  are  8  and  8y2  feet 
high.  The  growth  is  so  dense  tnat  it  is  difficult  to  force 
one's  way  through.  The  roots  of  the  plants  of  this  year's 
growth  are  abundantly  noduled  ;  the  old  seeding  plants  have 
very  few  nodules.  The  old  roots  are  l1/^  to  2  feet  long,  and 
there  is  already  a  good  deal  of  humus  from  the  dead  plants 
and  roots.  In  places  grass  is  coming  in,  and  there  are  hun- 
dreds of  very  thrifty  locust  trees  scattered  about.  How  .came 
the  clover  there?  It  extends  also  along  and  beside  the  em- 
bankment of  the  now  disused  railroad  on  which  the  filling 
was  conveyed  from  the  reservoir.  I  have  taken  some  of  tne 
soil  and  seed  and  sown  it  on  a  rundown  field  on  my  farm 
in  the  hope  that  what  it  has  done  for  the  filled  meadows  it 
may  do  for  my  field.  The  Department  of  Agriculture  recom- 
mends sowing  the  seed  in  early  spring ;  but  in  the  case  of 
these  meadows  the  seed  is  evidently  self-sown  from  now  on. 
A  horse  to  which  I  offered  some  of  the  young  plants  ate 
them  with  avidity.  The  taste  to  me  is  not  unlike  that  of 


red  clover.  Do  not  these  facts  indicate  great  possibilities  for 
sweet  clover?  W.  C.  D. 

Sweet  clover  usually  works  into  a  new  territory 
along  the  railroads.  The  seed  falls  out  of  a  passing 
car,  or  comes  in  baled  hay  fed  to  horses.  We  know 
of  one  case  in  Bergen  County,  N.  J.,  where  this  clover 
started  in  a  railroad  cut  where  freight  cars  stand. 
We  shall  be  interested  to  know  how  this  experiment 
of  scattering  the  soil  turns  out. 

Oct.   2,  1909. 

Sweet  clover  will  probably  grow  on  soils  that  are 
slightly  acid,  but  it  much  prefers  limestone  soil. 
It  will  grow  on  soil  that  is  practically  exhausted  and 
worthless,  and  will  thrive  there,  producing  consid- 
erable humus  from  its  decaying  roots  and  tops,  and 
also  adding  much  nitrogen  to  the  soil  through  its 
bacteria.  The  writer  has  corresponded  with  many 
men  who  have  sown  down  fields  that  they  considered 
practically  worthless,  leaving  the  sweet  clover  to 
grow  up,  fall,  and  decay,  for  three  or  four  years' 
time,  then  plowing  and  cultivating  for  more  useful 
crops,  and,  without  exception,  they  state  that  one 
would  never  recognize  it  as  the  same  soil  that  they 
at  first  seeded  down  to  this  plant.  Sweet  clover  is  a 
oiennial;  that  is,  it  lives  for  just  two  years.  A  field 
sown  to  it  will  come  into  bloom  the  second  year,  and 
it  not  harvested  will  reseed  itself  on  the  same  ground, 
thus  continuing  indefinitely  to  grow,  to  deposit  its 
roots  and  tops  in  the  soil  as  a  fertilizer,  as  well  as 
to  build  up  the  soil  by  its  bacteria.  Some  writers 
prefer  seeding  the  field  two  years  in  succession,  there- 
by obtaining  somewhat  quicker  results,  because  there 
will  be  plants  in  bloom  each  year,  whereas  if  sown 
out  once  for  the  most  part  there  will  be  plants  in 
bloom  only  every  other  year. 

Sweet-clover  seed  is  said  to  heat  very  easily,  and 
most  commercial  samples  appear  to  be  worthless, 
nivery  one  of  our  correspondents  recommends  caution 
in  buying  the  seed.  Probably  if  it  were  grown  more, 
the  growers  would  learn  better  how  to  handle  it, 
and  a  better  article  would  be  put  upon  the  market. 
It  is  also  quite  slow  about  germinating,  many  writers 
61 


claiming  that  some  of  the  seed  will  not  come  up  until 
the  second  year.  We  find  this  to  be  somewhat  the 
case  ourselves.  Sweet  clover  possesses  many  advan- 
tages over  the  other  plants  which  are  commonly  used 
for  building  up  soils.  Crimson  clover  is  undoubtedly 
one  of  the  greatest  of  these  plants,  but  it  is  an  annual, 
and  requires  seeding  every  year,  while  the  sweet 
clover  requires  but  one  seeding.  Winter  vetch  is  also 
a  splendid  soil-builder.  It  is  a  little  high-priced,  and 
the  crop  is  decidedly  uncertain  in  the  Northern  States 
unless  inoculated,  and  it  also  requires  reseeding  each 
year.  Mammoth  clover  is  one  of  the  best,  but  it  is  a 
biennial,  and  not  so  certain  to  reseed  itself  as  fs  the 
sweet  clover.  Moreover,  the  sweet  clover  produces 
larger  plants  than*  any  of  the  other  legumes  men- 
tioned. Its  stalks  will  sometimes  be  as  large  as  a 
man's  thumb,  and  six  or  eight  feet  tall,  thus  pro- 
ducing very  large  amounts  of  humus  to  add  to  the 
soil. 

We  would  always  bear  in  mind  that  it  must  not  be 
allowed  to  escape  cultivation  to  fence  corners  or  to 
other  waste  places,  but  if  sown  and  confined  to  cul- 
tivated fields  no  one  need  fear  it,  because  one  or  two 
years'  cultivation  will  entirely  destroy  it.  I  think 
it  possible  that  many  of  the  men  who  are  laboring 
over  the  abandoned-farm  question  in  the  Eastern 
State  would  be  more  than  repaid  for  trying  this 
plant,  ana  I  think  that,  if  they  would  apply  good- 
sized  amounts  of  ground  limestone  to  the  worn-out 
fields  at  the  same  time,  they  would  accomplish'  the 
desired  result  about  as  quickly  and  as  cheaply  as  is 
possible.  And  I  feel  sure  that  farmers  having  any 
kind  of  soil  that  simply  needs  building  up  will  find 
this  plant  as  useful  in  bringing  it  up  as  any  legume 
that  we  have.  CHAS.  B.  WING. 

Ohio,  March  12,  1910. 

SOIL    SUITABLE    FOB    SWEET    CLOVER. 

I  have  numerous  letters  from  readers  of  the  Rural 
New-Yorker  in  regard  to  the  seeding  of  sweet  clover 
and  the  character  of  soil  best  suited  to  it.  Sweet 
clover  will  grow  on  any  soil  that  is  not  water-logged 

62 


if  it  contains  sufficient  moisture  to  sprout  the  seed. 
On  very  thin  and  worn  soils  the  growth  is  small  com- 
pared with  that  on  fertile  soils.  We  use  sweet 
clover  to  build  up  thin  and  much  depleted  soils — 
fields  that  have  become  useless  as  pasture — those 
filled  with  washes  and  gullies.  These  fields  generally 
have  a  growth  of  small  bushes  or  briers,  where  they 
have  been  lying  idle  for  several  years.  These  are 
cut  and  tramped  into  the  ruts.  The  tops  of  the  little 
ridges  are  dug  off  and  raked  into  the  ruts,  which  help 
to  hold  the  briers  and  bushes  in  place  until  they  are 
converted  into  humus.  If  the  washes  and  gullies 
are  not  too  deep  the  seed  is  harrowed  in  with  a 
double  A  harrow;  otherwise  the  seed  is  sown  early 
in  the  spring,  just  as  soon  as  the  soil  can  be  stirred, 
and  about  half  a  bushel  of  spring  oats  sown  with  it. 
The  amount  of  seed  to  be  sown  per  acre  on  fields  as 
described  above  is  15  or  20  IDS.;  on  soil  that  is  rea- 
sonably fertile,  where  sown  for  hay  or  pasture,  25 
to  30  Ibs.  per  acre.  Where  sown  to  produce  seed, 
the  soil  should  be  reasonably  fertile  and  15  Ibs.  of  seed 
per  acre  sown  broadcast,  and  harrowed  in.  Sow  as 
early  in  the  spring  as  the  soil  can  be  stirred.  For  fall 
seeding,  prepare  a  good  seed-bed  and  sow  the  seed  in 
October. 

Sweet  clover  for  hay  should  be  cut  just  as  the  first 
blossoms  appear.  If  left  standing  longer  the  stems 
become  woody,  and  a  great  many  of  the  leaves  fall 
off  when  cured.  Great  care  should  be  exercised  to  pre- 
vent the  hay  sun-burning,  as  this  will  destroy  the 
palatableness  and  its  nutritive  properties.  There  is 
no  better  way  to  fit  a  piece  of  ground  for  alfalfa 
than  to  seed  to  sweet  clover,  cut  off  a  crop  of  hay 
the  first  season,  and  plow  under  the  second  season 
when  the  clover  is  about  a  foot  tall;  then  cultivate 
with  drag  and  harrow  until  the  first  of  September, 
then  seed  to  alfalfa.  The  sweet  clover  improves  the 
soil  and  inoculates  it  with  the  nitrogen-gathering 
bacteria  which  are  so  necessary  to  the  existence  of 
alfalfa.  When  seeding  for  hay  I  would  not  use  any 
nurse  crop;  and  do  not  cut  too  close  to  the  ground 
the  first  time.  Leave  five  or  six  inches  of  stubble  to 

68 


protect  the  crown  and  roots  until  a  new  growth  is 
made.  If  permitted  to  go  to  seed  the  second  season, 
and  the  seed  to  ripen,  it  will  reseed  itself.  The 
sweet-clover  plant  lives  but  two  years.  It  dies  at 
the  end  of  the  second  season,  and  its  large  fleshy 
roots  decay  rapidly,  admitting  the  air  deep  into  the 
subsoil.  J.  W.  G. 

Warsaw,  Ky. 

A  PLEA  FOR  SWEET  CLOVER. 

What  J.  W.  G.  says  about  sweet  clover  on  page  63 
agrees  with  my  experience.  One  reason  that  so 
many  farmers  condemn  it  without  a  trial  is  that  they 
have  seen  stock  refuse  to  eat  it  when  green  and 
rank.  The  bitter  taste  of  the  green  clover,  which 
sometimes  causes  stock  to  refuse  it,  largely  passes 
away  when  cured  for  hay.  For  hay  it  grows  too 
coarse  to  be  allowed  to  stand  until  in  bloom,  unless 
it  is  to  be  run  through  a  feed  cutter.  That  which 
we  ran  through  the  cutter  was  all  eaten,  although  not 
harvested  until  beginning  to  bloom  and  nearly  five 
feet  high.  We  intend  to  try  it  in  the  silo  with  corn. 
Another  reason  why  this  clover  is  not  more  used  is 
that  it  is  feared  as  a  weed.  By  cutting  or  plowing 
under  so  that  no  seeds  form  there  is  no  danger. 
Farmers  are  just  beginning  to  wake  up  to  the  fact 
that  the  humus  in  the  soil  should  be  kept  up  as 
well  as  the  elements  of  fertility.  No  matter  how 
rich  in  fertilizer  a  soil  may  be,  it  can  not  do  its  best 
unless  filled  with  humus.  When  humus  is  added  to 
a  soil  its  texture  is  improved,  it  is  enabled  to  with- 
stand drouth  much  better,  and  nitrogen,  the  most 
costly  plant  food  element,  is  increased.  The  advan- 
tage of  sweet  clover  is  that  it  is  so  very  thrifty  and 
hardy,  so  well  able  to  get  along  with  poor  soil,  drain- 
age, and  preparation.  Some  soils  are  said  to  require 
inoculation,  but  we  have  not  found  such. 

If  there  is  any  leguminous  crop  equal  to  sweet 
clover  for  green  manuring  in  the  cold  North  "we 
want  to  be  shown."  H.  M.  P. 

Vermont,  Feb.  12,  1910. 

64 


Frank  Coverdale's  Experiments  and 
Experience. 

SWEET  CLOVER. 

ITS    VALUE   AS    PASTURAGE  FOR   CATTLE   AND   BEES  J    WORTH 
FOUR    DOLLARS    AN    ACRE    FOR    HONEY    ALONE. 

Prom  GLEANINGS  for  Feb.   15,  1908. 

The  steers  shown  in  the  illustrations  are  part  of  a 
load  shipped  to  Chicago  Aug.  1,  bringing  $5.75  per 
100.  During  June  and  July  they  were  fastened  into 
this  35-acre  field  in  which  was  a  pretty  good  stand 
oi  sweet  clover.  This  ground  has  been  sown  to  this 
valuable  legume  for  four  years,  and  it  seems  to  thrive 
better  each  year.  No  one  who  looks  at  this  pasture 
and  sees  the  cattle  eating  it  and  becoming  fat  has 
any  doubt  about  its  value  as  a  pasture-plant.  Most 
farmers  think  I  am  growing  a  vile  weed;  but  they  say 
it  makes  good  feed  for  the  cattle  nevertheless.  When 
I  want  to  get  rid  of  it  after  getting  other  fields  started 
I  guess  I  shall  have  to  plow  up  the  field. 

Sweet  clover  is  certainly  a  great  honey-plant,  and 
this  adds  very  largely  to  its  value  to  the  keeper 
of  bees.  It  is  also  the  very  best  clover  to  sow  where 
a  permanent  and  first-class  grazing-field  is  wanted  for 
dairy  cattle,  sheep  and  hogs.  I  have  not  the  least 
doubt  of  its  permanency,  because  of  its  luxurious 
growth  through  both  wet  periods  and  the  drouths.  It 
always  furnishes  a  large  quantity  of  nice  green 
feed  until  the  ground  begins  to  freeze  in  the  fall. 
Even  after  it  is  frozen  the  stock  do  well  on  it  if  any 
is  left. 

1  have  150  colonies  of  bees  near  this  field,  and  it 
is  a  sight  to  see  it  when  it  is  in  bloom.  The  bees 
keep  on  filling  the  supers  slowly  with  the  honey, 
which  is  water-white,  and  very  agreeable  to  most  peo- 
ple. For  me,  this  clover  has  yielded  honey  every 
season;  but  the  bees  do  better  on  it  at  times.  My 
neighbors  keep  some  bees,  so  about  200  colonies  work 
on  it  annually,  and  yet  the  field  is  worth  from  $3.00 

65 


to  $5.^/v/  an  acre  each  year  for  the  bees  alone.  I 
have  made  a  very  close  study  of  this  matter. 

I  think  it  will  not  be  many  years  before  these  bees 
will  have  hundreds  of  acres  of  sweet  clover  to  work 
on,  and  then  I  expect  to  see  real  results.  I  have 
seventy  acres  of  sweet  clover  20  miles  from  home, 
where  I  never  expect  to  keep  bees;  for  I  want  only 
a  good  rich  pasture  in  this  place. 

A  willow-tree  once  blew  down  and  broke  the  fence 
so  that  my  cattle  walked  right  into  my  neighbor's 
hay-field.  A  ditch  extended  from  my  field  into  his, 
and  the  sweet-clover  seed  had  been  washed  down  until 
it  grew  along  the  banks  in  his  field.  This  neighbor 
had  told  me  he  was  afraid  it  would  cover  his  farm; 
but  my  cattle  found  it  that  night,  and  ate  it  nearly 
to  the  ground  without  touching  either  the  alsike  or 
the  timothy.  FRANK  COVEBDALE. 

Maquoketa,  Iowa. 

[In  a  letter  written  later,  to  Dr.  Miller,  Mr.  Cover- 
dale  made  the  statement  that  sweet  clover  is  worth 
$4  an  acre  for  honey,  $15  an  acre  as  pasturage  for 
cattle,  and  $30  an  acre  for  seed,  when  the  seed  sells 
near  home  for  $10  a  bushel.  This  makes  a  total  of 
$49  an  acre. — ED.] 

GROWING   SWEET   CLOVER. 

HOW  TO  GET  A  GOOD  STAND. 

From  GLEANINGS  for  May  15,  1909. 

[Mr.  Coverdale  has  had  several  years  of  experience  in 
growing  sweet  clover  for  seed,  and  he  is  in  position  to 
know  its  value  also  for  stock  and  for  bees.  His  statements 
here,  in  regard  to  the  growing  of  this  clover,  are  of  especial 
interest  because  of  his  long  experience. — ED.] 

If  one  wishes  to  grow  sweet  clover  for  the  seed 
alone  he  will  find  that  it  is  not  profitable,  for  this 
plant  must  be  grown  for  all  there  is  in  it.  Sweet 
clover  differs  from  all  other  clovers,  and  requires 
entirely  different  handling.  A  good  stand  for  seed 
can  not  be  secured  on  poor  land  in  this  locality;  and 
even  if  it  could,  one  would  miss  every  other  year,  as 
this  plant  is  a  sure  biennial.  Furthermore,  sup- 
posing it  were  possible  to  get  a  good  stand,  and  the 

67 


field  were  run  for  seed  only  for  ten  years,  there  would 
be  only  half  a  stand  each  year,  as  the  old  crop,  if  it 
were  sufficiently  thick,  would  smother  the  young 
plants  and  make  the  field  very  spotted.  With  fairly 
rich  land  there  should  be  little  if  any  trouble  in 
getting  a  stand;  but  to  grow  sweet  clover  profitably, 
the  field  must  be  grazed  during  the  early  part  of  the 
season,  until  July  1st  at  least.  After  the  stock  is 
taken  off,  the  clover  will  grow  very  rapidly,  so  that 
a  fine  crop  of  seed  may  be  harvested.  When  the  seed 
is  sufficiently  ripe,  the  field  should  be  mown  12  to 
14  inches  from  the  ground,  so  there  will  be  a  heavy 
fah  feed  for  stock  after  cutting.  This  is  not  true 
of  either  the  red  or  alsike  clovers.  Stock  thrive 
on  sweet  clover  better  than  on  any  other  legume 
that  I  have  tried,  and  I  have  now  had  six  years'  expe- 
rience. 

The  worst  drawback  is  the  difficulty  in  getting  a 
good  stand,  as  it  takes  two  or  three  years  before 
a  field  reaches  its  best,  and  during  this  time  it  seems 
like  pulling  teeth  to  plow  it  under,  because  it  is  worth 
too  much  to  plow.  However,  in  managing  a  field 
as  outlined  above,  a  crop  of  seed  averaging  two  bush- 
els to  the  acre  can  be  secured  each  year,  which,  with 
the  very  excellent  pasturage  one  gets,  pays  to  an  ex- 
tent fully  equal  to  a  crop  of  corn,  and  there  is  much 
less  labor. 

At  the  Iowa  Experiment  Station,  last  year,  five 
acres  were  sown  to  sweet  clover  in  May,  and  a  good 
stand  was  secured.  The  field  was  mown  five  inches 
above  the  ground,  and  it  yielded  one  and  one-half 
tons  of  hay  per  acre.  After  this,  sheep  were  pas- 
tured on  it  until  winter  set  in. 

This  clover  should  be  sown  with  timothy  without 
a  nurse  crop.  Cattle  should  be  pastured  on  the 
field  all  summer,  but  not  too  heavily.  The  white 
sweet  clover  is  apt  to  come  up  well,  and  then  later 
get  yellow  or  sick-looking  in  places.  Perhaps  one 
patch  ten  feet  wide  will  do  well,  while  another  a 
short  distance  away  gets  sick,  making  the  field  look 
spotted.  If  one  does  not  care  to  keep  cattle  of  his 
own,  stock  belonging  to  some  one  else  might  be  taken 

68 


in.  If  no  seed  is  wanted,  the  cattle  can  be  allowed  to 
run  over  it  the  whole  season;  and  if  bees  are  kept,  a 
honey  harvest  will  begin  July  5th  and  continue  until 
frost.  The  bees  work  on  the  field  like  one  great 
swarm  from  early  morning  until  late  at  night,  and 
every  one  who  gets  a  taste  of  the  sweet-clover  honey 
wants  more  of  it. 

The  white  sweet  clover  should  be  cut  for  seed  while 
the  stalk  is  still  green;  and  after  the  crop  is  run 
through  the  huller  the  hay  will  be  superior  to  the 
best  timothy.  It  is  best  to  work  with  the  crop 
when  it  is  a  little  damp,  to  avoid  shelling;  and  when 
hauling,  spread  a  canvas  over  the  rack,  and  occa- 
sionally empty  this  canvas  over  the  middle  of  the 
stack. 

I  am  beginning  to  see  that  white  sweet  clover  will 
thrive  well  anywhere  after  the  bacteria  become  fixed 
in  the  soil,  and  it  will  bring  up  old  wornout  land 
very  quickly  when  once  a  stand  is  secured,  as  it 
produces  a  great  amount  of  humus,  and  gathers  an 
immense  amount  of  nitrogen  into  the  soil.  In  1907 
my  sweet  clover  produced  three  bushels  of  seed  per 
acre  where  the  cattle  were  taken  off  in  the  middle 
of  July.  There  would  have  been  a  better  yield,  per- 
haps, if  they  had  been  taken  off  earlier;  but  by  so 
doing  the  young  plants  are  sacrificed  that  are  to 
grow  the  seed  for  the  next  season. 

Maquoketa,   Iowa. 

SWEET  CLOVER  FOB  FORAGE. 

My  enthusiasm  runs  high  over  my  experiments  with 
sweet  clover  and  I  will  continue  to  work  with  it.  The 
photo  shows  thirty-five  acres  of  it,  which  is  six  years 
old  and  you  can  see  that  it  is  a  fine  field  indeed.  No 
other  legume  could  have  been  -sown  to  hold  out  and 
produce  so  large  a  quantity  of  very  excellent  feed. 
It  produces  abundance  of  greed  feed  from  the  last 
week  in  April  until  November,  and  the  fore  part  of 
winter  if  any  is  left.  Looking  north  you  can  see 
seventy  rods  over  this  field. 

Forty-one  1,200-pound  steers  had  the  run  of  over 


fifty  acres  altogether,  and  fattened  up  well,  and 
sold  in  Chicago  for  $5.65  a  hundred,  August  1.  I 
have  been  shipping  the  steers  from  this  field  each 
year.  $5.75  is  the  best  price  I  have  obtained  from 
steers  off  this  field  and  that  was  in  1907,  when  all 
were  confined  to  the  sweet  clover,  which  seems  to 
produce  the  best  gain  and  makes  the  steers  very 
smooth  and  slick. 

Just  see  how  tall  it  has  grown  in  two  weeks,  after 
the  steers  were  taken  off  August  15.  Part  of  the  field 
was  cut  for  seed  about  September  1,  1907,  and  gave 
three  bushels  to  the  acre  of  nice  clean  seed.  The  hay 
that  I  have  cut  is  of  the  very  best  and  both  cattle 
and  hogs  are  very  fond  of  it.  I  intend  to  pay  more 
attention  to  securing  the  hay  crop  from  this  valuable 
legume. 

I  sowed  twenty  acres  for  hogs  last  spring  and  got  a 
poor  stand.  I  -have  found  that  this  kind  of  pasture 
can't  be  kept  for  hogs  unless  all  are  well  ringed,  as 
when  fall  comes  they  dig  up  every  root  and  all  is 
eaten.  There  is  something  about  the  large  roots  that 
hogs  are  extremely  fond  of.  I  will  ring  all  the 
hogs  and  reseed  again  in  the  spring,  and  it  will  be 
a  sure  thing,  for  they  won't  get  the  roots  then. 

Timothy  and  sweet  clover  thrive  splendidly  to- 
getner.  I  consider  one  acre  of  this  clover,  all  things 
considered,  worth  one  acre  of  corn  where  one  gets 
a  good  stand.  But  here  is  where  nearly  all  have 
failed.  Many  have  sown  it  here  and  none  have  a 
perfect  stand.  It  always  does  well  where  it  seeds  it- 
self on  the  land  and  it  spreads  rapidly  over  the  field 
when  not  pastured  too  hard. 

A  good  catch  can  be  had  on  ground  that  will  grow 
fifty  or  sixty  bushels  of  corn  to  the  acre,  and  it  will 
be  worth  just  as  much,  to  the  man  who  succeeds  and 
uses  it  right. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  whether  the  sweet  clover 
makes  good  feed,  but  whether  one  can  get  a  good 
stand  that  will  be  strong  enough  to  endure  the  first 
winter.  Ever  after  that  it  will  be  strong  enough 
to  stand  any  kind  of  a  winter.  This  clover  acts 
very  much  as  does  alfalfa,  and  from  the  experience 

70 


I  am  getting  now,  August  may  be  a  good  time  to 
sow  it,  at  once  after  taking  of  a  crop  of  early  grain, 
by  plowing  the  ground,  get  in  good  shape  and  sow. 
I  got  the  best  stand  this  way.  If  I  was  sowing  in 
spring  would  sow  without  a  nurse  crop  and  turn  on 
cattle  when  the  clover  gets  five  or  six  inches  high 
as  tramping  the  ground  suits  it. 

To  try  to  grow  this  clover  for  hay  alone  would 
be  unsuitable  as  it  grows  too  early  and  too  coarse 
and  gets  big  enough  for  hay  in  May,  and  can't  be 
cured  at  this  time.  So  it  must  be  eaten  off  by 
stock  until  haying  weather  arrives,  and  then  it 
grows  hay  of  fine  quality,  and  must  always  be  mown 
about  five  inches  from  the  ground  and  managed  so 
as  to  let  it  seed  some  if  one  wishes  to  keep  the  stand, 
as  it  is  strictly  a  biennial. 

The  sweet  clover  field  always  affords  abundance 
of  fall  and  spring  feed  when  once  established.  I  like 
to  cut  for  seed  when  the  seed  is  a  little  on  the  green 
side,  and  the  straw  is  better  hay  than  timothy  after 
being  hulled.  However,  I  don't  consider  it  anything 
near  as  nice  to  handle  for  hay  as  alfalfa,  but  the 
hay  is  just  as  good.  I  consider  sweet  clover  espe- 
cially adapted  for  grazing  and  it  never  bloats  a  steer. 
The  cattle  fill  to  the  highest  pitch  on  sweet  clover, 
but  never  bloat,  a  thing  of  considerable  value  to  me. 

When  once  got  on  poor  land  it  builds  it  up  very 
fast  in  both  humus  and  nitrogen.  It  usually  runs 
around  22  per  cent  in  protein,  and  any  man  who  suc- 
ceeds in  getting  a  good  stand  will  be  amply  repaid 
for  his  trouble. — F.  COVERDALE,  JACKSON  COUNTY, 
IOWA,  IN  SUCCESSFUL  FARMING. 

SWEET    CLOVER    COMING    TO   BE    RECOGNIZED    BY    THE    AGRI- 
CULTURAL  PAPERS. 

I  am  making  considerable  headway  with  sweet  clo- 
ver in  my  State.  One  year  ago  no  farm  journal 
would  tolerate  the  idea  of  advocating  the  sowing  of 
melilotus  alba;  but  now,  if  you  read  Wallace's  Farmer 
you  will  notice  that  they  advise  farmers  to  sow  it 
under  certain  conditions,  saying  it  should  be  taken 
on  trial  by  all  farmers.  It  begins  to  look  now  as 

71 


though  M.  alba  were  to  play  a  prominent  part  on 
every  farm  in  the  United  States,  both  where  alfalfa 
is  grown  and  where  red  and  alsike  are  depended  on. 
Much  good  has  come  from  Henry  A.  Wallace's  visit 
to  my  field  last  fall,  and  that  is  why  he  recommends 
its  use  as  a  pasture-plant,  and  the  coming  summer 
I  hope  to  demonstrate  its  value  as  a  superior  hay 
crop,  just  as  I  have  done  as  a  superior  pasture-legume. 

THE  YELLOW  VARIETY  PROMISES  WELL. 

I  am  harboring  a  strong  hope  that  the  yellow  varie- 
ty may  prove  to  be  of  great  value  to  sow  in  the  corn 
at  the  last  plowing,  and  then  to  be  pastured  the  fol- 
lowing season  or  be  plowed  under  the  last  half  of 
May.  If  this  proves  to  be  good  it  will  mean  more  to 
the  corn-belt  farmer  than  anything  of  the  kind  that 
was  ever  brought  to  light.  That  is  why  I  want  this 
yellow  seed.  Yellow  sweet  clover  grows  two  feet 
high  here  by  the  16th  of  May,  and  could  be  turned 
under;  and  what  a  fertilizer  it  would  make,  and  all  in 
time  to  plant  to  corn!  or  if  sown  with  timothy  it 
would  make  a  splendid  pasture;  or  knock  down  the 
stalks,  and  with  a  binder  cut  it  for  seed.  It  is  a 
proven  fact  that  sweet  clover  is  the  best  to  feed  to 
stock,  and  that  it  contains  more  of  the  essentials  than 
any  other  clover.  Doesn't  the  future  look  bright  for 
sweet  clover?  FRANK  COVERDALE. 

Maquoketa,  la.,  Feb.  7,  1910. 

YELLOW    SWEET    CLOVER    IN    KANSAS,    ETC. 

Yellow  sweet  clover  commenced  to  bloom  here  the 
last  week  in  April.  It  is  in  full  bloom  now,  and  all 
kinds  of  stock  like  it.  As  for  pasture,  sown  witn 
alfalfa  it  prevents  bloat.  All  missed  places  and  alkali 
spots  I  sow  with  it.  I  have  four  acres  of  it.  I  think 
it  is  next  to  alfalfa  for  pasture  and  forage  crop.  I 
sowed  a  bushel  of  alsike  for  pasture  this  spring — the 
first  I  have  tried.  I  put  it  on  bottom  land.  They  say 
it  does  better  there  than  on  upland.  The  yellow  sweet 
clover  does  not  grow  as  rank  as  the  white,  and  makes 
better  pasture.  JOHN  W.  WILSON. 

Concordia,  Kan.,  May  11. 

72 


SWEET  CLOVER  AS  A  FERTILIZER. 
From   Hoard's  Dairyman,  Aug.   9,   1907. 

Valuable  as  melilot  is  shown  to  be  as  a  forage  crop, 
it  will  rank  still  higher  as  a  renovator  of  the  fertility 
of  our  soil.  Being  a  legume,  it  shares^  with  other 
genera  of  that  family  in  the  maintenance  of  the  nitro- 
gen-secreting organisms  that  enrich  the  soil.  In  fact, 
our  alfalfa-growers  inoculate  their  fields  with  the 
melilot  bacteria  to  make  their  plants  vigorous  and 
lasting.  It  has  the  advantage  of  its  hardiness,  adapt- 
ability to  poor  soils,  its  spontaneous  growth,  and, 
most  notably,  of  its  remarkable  root  development. 

This  last  feature  is  due  to  its  biennial  habit.  The 
first  year's  growth,  like  the  cabbage,  beet,  and  turnip 
goes  to  provide  a  storehouse  of  food  for  the  rapid 
second-year  growth  and  production  of  seed,  so  that, 
unlike  the  other  legumes,  with  their  slender  fibrous 
roots,  it  develops  a  cluster  of  fleshy  roots  which  reach 
several  feet  into  the.  ground.  My  own  observations 
afford  an  estimate  of  over  20  tons  of  root  growth  per 
acre.  Prom  the  New  York  Experiment  Station  I  get 
an  estimate  of  28  tons  per  acre.  This  root  develop- 
ment is  unique  in  the  pulse  family,  and,  with  the 
nitrogen-secreting  organisms,  makes  an  ideal  combi- 
nation. 

The  second-year  growth  is  even  more  remarkable 
than  this.  I  have  taken  ten  pounds  of  half-grown 
herbage  from  a  square  yard  of  surface  early  in  June, 
or  more  than  24  tons  per  acre  in  less  than  half 
the  growing  season.  This  is  followed  by  a  corre- 
sponding crop  of  seed,  which  explains  its  rapid  propa- 
gation. 

But  its  biennial  habit  gives  it  another  value  as  a 
fertilizer.  The  dense  fibrous  roots  of  the  perennials 
are  slow  to  decay  and  yield  their  fertility  to  the  soil, 
but  the  long  fleshy  roots  of  melilot  decay  almost  as 
soon  as  the  seed  matures,  leaving  their  nitrogen  con- 
tent in  condition  for  immediate  use  and  the  soil  in 
the  highest  state  of  permeability  through  this  deep 
penetration. 

73 


These  marked  advantages  have  been  verified  many 
times  by  observation.  They  were  first  noted  along 
the  roadsides  where  melilot  first  gained  foothold. 
The  crop  of  grass  succeeding  a  growth  of  sweet  clover 
is  always  luxuriant.  Even  beds  of  sand,  which  never 
bear  more  than  few  coarse  weeds,  after  a  growth  of 
sweet  clover  were  completely  covered  with  a  thick 
sward.  In  roadway  ruts  and  ditches  the  bare  subsoil 
is  first  clothed  with  melilot  which  is  followed  by  grass 
and  the  ugly  gashes  are  soon  healed.  Noting  the 
liking  of  sweet  clover  for  bare  spots,  the  writer 
sowed  some  stony  hilltops  and  barren  slopes  in  cul- 
tivated fields.  A  marked  improvement  was  noted  in 
the  crops  raised  on  the  clover  plowed  under  on  these 
spots. 

Clearer  proof  was  noted  on  a  neighbor's  field  seeded 
to  rye.  Here  a  hatful  of  seed  was  scattered  upon  a 
ridge  in  the  center  of  the  field.  The  spring  winds 
blew  the  rye  plants  out  of  the  ground,  but  the  sweet 
clover  made  a  good  stand  and .  in  the  fall  covered 
the  ground.  Oats  followed  the  rye  and  on  the  patch 
of  sweet-clover  sod  the  growth  and  yield  was  twice 
as  heavy  as  elsewhere. 

But  the  best  test  has  just  been  made  by  our- 
selves on  a  16-acre  field  of  badly  worn  soil,  the 
land  having  been  cropped  with  little  change  for 
50  years  and  had  lately  yielded  less  than  half  crops. 
It  was  seeded  with  timothy,  clover,  and  melilot.  The 
latter  made  a  good  stand  only  where  inoculated  by 
wash  from  the  bacteria-infected  roadside,  but  there 
it  made  a  fine  growth  and  the  first  cutting  gave  four 
loads  per  acre.  This  seeding  was  kept  three  years. 
Pastured  the  last  year,  it  gave  double  the  feed  af- 
forded by  adjacent  pastures. 

Last  fall  a  thin  coat  of  manure  was  given  the 
weak  spots  and  the  sod  was  turned  for  corn.  Corn 
was  drilled  in  the  well-fitted  ground  about  May  20th 
and  the  strong  growth  thus  started  was  kept  by  good 
conditions  until  the  finish.  It  took  70  pounds  of  twine 
to  harvest  the  crop  and  the  yield  was  taken  off  at  50 
loads;  only  the  lightest  has  been  husked  but  this 
yields  120  baskets  per  acre. 


The  best  ears  exceed  a  pound  in  weight.  While 
the  yield  is  not  remarkable,  the  change  due  to  the 
clover  enrichment  is  very  great  and  could  hardly 
have  been  wrought  otherwise  at  so  little  cost. 

Beloit,  Wisconsin.  I.  M.  BUELL. 

SEED    GATHERING    AND    SEEDING. 
From  Hoard's  Dairyman,,  Aug.  16,  1907. 

The  lavish  production  of  seed  in  this  plant  makes 
the  securing  of  this  an  easy  matter.  The  stems  also 
shed  their  leaves  as  the  seed  matures,  leaving  little 
besides  the  long  spikes  loaded  with  the  short  brown 
seed-pods.  These  dry  quickly  after  cutting,  and  can 
be  easily  whipped  or  beaten  off.  A  roadside  patch 
of  a  few  square  rods  will  often  yield  seed  enough  for 
several  acres,  and  I  have  whipped  off  two  barrels  of 
the  seed-pods  in  half  a  day.  I  usually  cut  with  a 
hand  sickle,  and  lay  in  small  piles  to  dry.  There  is 
no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  secured  and  hulled  in 
the  usual  way  if  one  has  enough  to  handle  thus,  and, 
when  there  is  demand  for  it,  no  doubt  farmers  will 
raise  the  seed  as  they  now  raise  clover.  It  is  adver- 
tised by  the  leading  seedmen  under  the  name  Bok- 
hara clover,  at  about  $16  per  cwt.  One  can  afford 
to  gather  the  wayside  crop  for  one-third  this  rate. 

My  attempts  at  seeding  with  melilot  have  been 
very  interesting.  From  the  readiness  with  which  it 
spreads  along  the  highways,  in  gravel  beds,  in  rubble 
piles  about  old  quarries,  in  cuts  and  ditches,  even  in 
June  and  quack-grass  sod,  one  would  look  for  no 
trouble  in  seeding  cultivated  fields. 

But  it  behaves  quite  differently  in  field  culture.  On 
new  land,  or  that  freshly  manured,  there  is  no 
trouble;  and  if  the  soil  is  too  barren  to  afford  any 
other  growth,  it  will  maintain  itself;  but  if  the  soil 
is  both  poor  and  weedy,  the  latter  will  smother  the 
tender  young  plants  even  though  they  make  a  fair 
start.  I  notice,  however,  that,  wherever  the  surface 
is  subject  to  overflow  from  a  sweet-clover-covered 
surface  a  vigorous  growth  is  maintained  from  the 
start,  due  no  doubt  to  bacterial  inoculation. 

75 


Its  vigorous  growth  and  rapid  spread  along  our 
highways  is  due  no  doubt  to  the  wide  dissemination 
of  these  germs  by  the  mud  and  dust  of  travel.  They 
are  also  carried  by  winds  and  waters  over  adjacent 
surfaces,  and  wherever  this  occurs  the  sweet  clover 
thrives. 

We  need,  therefore,  to  provide  both  seed  and  the 
inoculation  of  the  soil  with  the  nourishing  bacteria. 

Our  alfalfa-growers  are  advised  to  gather  the  bac- 
teria-infected soil  from  the  sweet-clover  patches  on  the 
roadsides  and  sow  it  upon  their  alfalfa  seeding,  and 
doubtless  the  best  way  to  gain  the  same  end  with 
our  melilot  is  to  do  this. 

As  to  time  and  amount  of  seeding  we  may  follow 
our  practice  with  red  clover.  But  if  one  sows  the  un- 
hulled  seed  it  is  safe  to  follow  nature  and  sow  in  the 
fall,  leaving  the  seed  to  start  in  the  spring. 

This  in  old  meadows,  pastures,  and  with  fall  grains, 
is  doubtless  the  best  time  to  seed.  I  have  found  four 
quarts  per  acre  of  the  unhulled  seed  enough  for  a 
good  stand. 

ITS    DISTRIBUTION    AND    HISTORY. 

Although  sweet  clover  is  so  new  to  us  that  very  few 
people  have  thought  of  its  value  as  a  farm  product,  a 
knowledge  of  its  value  is  as  old  as  history.  Its  native 
home  is  Western  Asia,  as  its  name  (Bokhara  clover) 
indicates,  the  same  as  that  of  the  human  race.  Its 
use  as  a  forage-plant  seems  to  have  been  common 
from  the  first.  Homer  notes  it  as  growing  on  the 
plains  of  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  and  tells  us  that  the 
steeds  of  the  Greeks  fed  upon  it  during  the  siege  of 
Troy.  I  have  been  told  by  men  from  the  East  that  it 
is  still  raised  in  these  lands  on  irrigated  lands  as 
alfalfa  is  in  the  West  and  for  the  same  purpose. 

The  ijame  "Melilotus,"  honey-blossom,  common  to 
both  Greek  and  Latin,  shows  that  it  was  well  known 
to  both  races,  and  under  the  name  is  often  noted  in 
classic  literature.  But  by  far  the  best  record  of  this 
plant  is  preserved  to  us  by  Pliny  in  his  Natural  His- 
tory. He  refers  to  it  several  times,  describes  the 
plant,  gives  its  distribution  and  uses,  and  tells  more 

76 


about  it  than  most  of  our  modern  botanists.  In  his 
day  it  was  held  in  high  esteem,  both  as  a  honey-plant 
and  for  its  medical  uses,  and  really  these  latter  have 
been  held  in  high  favor  by  the  people  of  the  Conti- 
nent to  the  present  day. 

Numerous  species  of  melilot  have  been  highly  es- 
teemed as  forage-plants  in  Central  and  Southern 
Europe  from  ancient  times,  and  most  notably  in 
Switzerland,  where  the  flavor  and  excellence  of  Swiss 
dairy  products  are  due  in  large  measure  to  the  pres- 
ence of  melilot  in  their  mountain  meadows  and  pas- 
tures. In  England,  however,  though  several  species 
are  common,  conditions  do  not  seem  to  favor  their 
growth,  and  they  do  not  afford  enough  verdure  for 
profitable  forage. 

it  is  very  interesting  to  note  that  our  melilot  in 
its  new  home  shows  a  remarkable  increase  of  strength 
and  vigor.  Dr.  Asa  Gray  describes  it  as  growing  2  to 
4  feet  high  in  the  New  England  States.  Dr.  Bailey, 
in  his  Botanical  Encyclopedia,  makes  it  from  3  to  8 
feet  high  in  New  York.  Here,  on  the  Southern  Wis- 
consin line,  I  have  measured  cut  stems  tnat  were 
10%  feet  long,  and  no  doubt  taller  growths  may  be 
found  along  our  creek  and  river  bottoms.  This  appar- 
ent adaptation  to  new  conditions  may  also  account 
for  the  marked  difference  in  palatability  between  our 
stems  and  that  common  in  the  East,  South  and  South- 


The  use  of  the  bacteria-supporting  legumes  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  fertility  of  our  farms  is  one  of  the 
most  promising  fields  for  agricultural  experiment. 
It  is  well  to  know  that  we  have  right  at  our  doors  the 
most  hardy,  rank-growing  members  of  this  class,  and 
one  that  promises  the  largest  increment  of  fertilizing 
matter  from  its  growth.  I.  M.  B. 

Beloit,  Wis. 

SWEET   CLOVER  TO   THE   FRONT. 
From  The  Nebraska  Fanner.  January  10,  1910. 

There  was  a  time  when  it  would  be  a  daring  thing 
indeed  to  suggest  to  any  farmer  that  sweet  clover 
had  an  agricultural  value.  Even  to  this  day  there  are 

77 


many  who  deem  it  a  nuisance  simply  because  they 
have  seen  it  growing  where  it  was  not  wanted.  Any 
plant  is  a  nuisance  when  it  butts  in  out  of  place.  The 
sorriest-looking  field  of  corn  we  have  ever  seen  was 
put  into  that  condition  .by  some  harmless  volunteer 
buckwheat  growing  where  the  farmer  wanted  only 
corn.  We  have  been  giving  considerable  attention  to 
sweet  clover  during  the  past  year,  and  our  efforts  have 
started  an  avalanche  of  favorable  testimony. 

The  letter  below,  from  Mr.  Harris,  of  Garfield 
county,  is  written  to  answer  those  of  our  subscribers 
who  desire  to  know  more  of  his  methods  and  suc- 
cesses than  was  contained  in  his  letter  we  published  a 
few  weeks  ago.  Mr.  Harris  is  in  the  border  land  of 
the  sand-hills  country,  and  his  evidence  bears  out 
what  we  have  been  saying  in  regard  to  the  value  of 
sweet  clover  for  sandy  land.  He  has  no  seed  for 
sale,  hence  his  enthusiasm  has  the  true  ring,  and  is 
not  a  part  of  a  propaganda  to  create  demand  for 
sweet-clover  seed. 

GOOD    THING    FOR    SANDY    LAND. 

I  know  of  only  two  varieties  successfully  grow- 
ing in  the  United  States:  the  white  and  yellow  bloom- 
ing. Sweet  clover  requires  less  seed  per  acre  than  any 
of  the  other  clovers,  and  a  fine  stand  can  be  had  by 
sowing  it  in  the  spring  alone,  or  with  any  of  the  small 
grains.  It  makes  good  grazing  or  hay  the  first  sea- 
son, and  it  will  make  a  good  growth  on  land  that  the 
other  clovers,  alfalfa,  and  tame  grasses  will  not  grow 
on  to  any  advantage.  It  contains  the  remedy  to  re- 
lieve bloat  of  alfalfa  and  red  clover. 

In  letting  some  young  cattle  to  some  timothy  and 
red-clover  hay-stacks  as  well  as  to  some  good  upland- 
prairie  hay-stacks  with  sweet-clover  stacks  in  the 
same  enclosure  this  fall,  they  did  not  disturb  any 
of  the  stacks  except  the  sweet  clover.  They  ate  into 
these  quite  deeply.  When  we  began  to  haul  hay  for 
the  whole  herd  and  scatter  it  out  upon  the  ground 
and  fill  the  feeding-racks,  the  cattle  left  all  other  kind 
of  hay  for  the  sweet  clover,  which  they  eat  up  so  close 
you  could  scarcely  tell  any  has  been  fed  them. 

78 


Our  horses  eat  the  sweet-clover  hay  with  the  same 
greed  and  relish  as  did  the  cattle.  The  hired  help 
we  had  taking  care  of  the  stock  said  he  thought 
sweet  clover  was  unfit  for  stock;  but  he  knows  dif- 
ferent now,  and  is  trying  to  procure  some  seed  to 
sow  on  his  farm.  Mr.  Thompson,  of.  the  Allerton  & 
Thompson  ranch,  adjoining  my  ranch,  is  growing 
tame  grasses  and  clovers  very  successfully  on  their 
50,000-acre  ranch  here.  They  have  considerable  sweet 
clover  also,  and  will  put  out  considerable  more  this 
coming  year,  as  they  consider  it  a  very  valuable 
clover. 

After  having  had  five  years'  experience  with  it  in 
Wheeler  and  Garfield  counties  I  will  say  that  I  have 
had  horses  and  cattle  pasture  on  it  where  there  was 
red  clover,  timothy,  blue  grass,  rye,  and  native  grass; 
and  while  the  stock  let  grasses,  clover  and  rye  seed, 
they  did  not  let  the  sweet  clover  get  more  than  four 
inches  high;  while  with  only  a  barbed-wire  fence  sep- 
arating, other  sweet  clover  grew  six  feet  high.  I  have 
also  had  tne  same  experience  with  it  as  a  hog-pasture, 
and  have  had  the  hogs  root  and  eat  the  sweet-clover 
roots  in  the  fall  and  spring,  and  not  disturb  the  red 
clover  in  the  same  pasture.  I  have  also  seen  stock 
refuse  good  hay  when  offered  sweet  clover,  and  several 
oiners  have  done  finely  with  it  here.  Alfalfa  also  does 
well  when  inoculated  by  sweet  clover.  I  consider 
sweet  clover  almost  as  valuable  as  alfalfa  on  account 
of  it  being  very  hardy,  and  reseeds  better  than  any 
of  the  clovers.  The  roots  die  in  two  years,  leaving 
fifteen  to  twenty  tons  of  vegetable  matter  in  the  soil. 
I  have  had  red  clover  and  alfalfa  grow  four  feet  high 
here,  while  sweet  clover  has  grown  six  feet  high;  and 
could  I  have  only  one  of  these  it  would  be  sweet 
clover. 

A  test  was  made  with  it  in  feeding  sheep  in  Wyom- 
ing a  year  ago  last  winter,  which  gave  about  the  same 
results  as  alfalfa.  It  was  not  hard  to  find  farmers  in 
Southeast  Nebraska  twenty-five  years  ago 'who  de- 
clared that  they  would  sooner  grow  a  crop  of  weeds  on 
their  land  than  a  crop  of  alfalfa,  while  now  many 
of  the  same  have  half  of  their  land  in  alfalfa,  and 


wish  the  other  half  was  also.  I  fear  we  often  allow 
our  prejudice  and  erroneous  notions  to  get  the  best 
of  us,  and  do  not  investigate  and  make  actual  experi- 
ments for  ourselves  so  as  to  obtain  facts  and  truths 
that  would  be  valuable  to  us  all. 

I  have  no  sweet-clover  seed  for  sale. 

Garfield   Co.  J.  S.  HARRIS. 

SWEET    CLOVER    IN    KENTUCKY. 

Editor  Nebraska  Farmer: — Mr.  V.  R.  Thompson, 
president  of  the  Brown  County  (Ohio)  Agricultural 
Society,  tells  me  that  the  fattest  bunch  of  grass  cattle 
he  ever  saw  came  off  a  twenty-acre  washed  and  gullied 
hillside  near  Milford,  Kentucky,  where  sweet  clover 
had  taken  possession,  simply  because  the  land  was  too 
poor  to  grow  anything  else. 

Sweet  clover  grows  along  creeks  here  on  sandbars, 
also  on  wornout  clay  by  roadsides. 

Ohio.  C.  D.  LYON. 

Clippings  from  Farm  and  Fireside. 

TO  RELIEVE  BLOAT  IN  SHEEP. 

A  reader  at  Gibbon,  Neb.,  refers  to  a  former  ar- 
ticle by  Mr.  Harris  in  these  words:  "In  a  recent  issue 
you  published  an  article  on  sweet  clover  by  Mr.  S.  J. 
Harris  in  which  he  states  that  'It  contains  the  remedy 
to  relieve  bloat  of  alfalfa.'  Now,  I  have  had  trouble 
in  pasturing  sheep  on  alfalfa,  and  would  like  to  know 
if  sweet  clover  will  prevent  bloat  when  planted  with 
alfalfa,  or  should  the  clover  alone  be  used?  What  is 
its  value  as  compared  with  alfalfa  as  a  food  for 
sheep?" 

The  bitterness  of  sweet  clover  is  due  to  a  drug 
called  cumarin  contained  within  the  plant.  It  is  this 
drug  that  prevents  bloat  when  animals  are  pastured 
upon  sweet  clover.  Professor  Buffum,  of  Wyoming,  is 
breeding  this  bitter  principle  out  of  the  plant;  but 
some  friends  of  sweet  clover  say  they  would  not  have 
it  out  of  their  sweet  clover  if  they  could,  because  it 
is  so  valuable  in  preventing  bloat.  While  it  is  com- 
monly accepted  that  sweet  clover  will  not  cause  bloat 
because  of  the  cumarin  it  contains,  we  do  not  know, 
and  do  not  know  that  Mr.  Harris  meant  to  say  that  a 


little  sweet  clover  would  prevent  bloat  if  a  whole  lot 
of  alfalfa  is  eaten.  We  are  inclined  to  believe  that  it 
might  not.  The  two  plants  would  not  go  well  to- 
gether, because  alfalfa  is  a  long-lived  perennial,  while 
sweet  clover  lives  but  two  years.  Alfalfa  would 
scarcely  be  in  good  condition  to  pasture  when  the 
sweet  clover  sown  with  it  would  have  lived  out  its 
appointed  time. 

As  to  the  relative  value  of  sweet  clover  and  alfalfa 
as  sheep  feeds  we  have  only  the  results  of  some  ex- 
periments made  at  the  Wyoming  station  to  guide  us 
in  forming  conclusions.  We  quote  directly  from  Bul- 
letin No.  79  of  the  Wyoming  Experiment  Station  at 
Laramie : 

"Wild  sweet  clover  is  common  along  irrigation  ditches 
and  in  waste  spots  ;  and  since  it  withstands  alkali  well,  and 
gives  a  heavy  tonnage  of  hay,  it  should  prove  a  desirable 
hay  crop  in  many  sections.  Stockmen  commonly  believe  that 
sweet  clover  is  useless  as  a  forage-plant ;  but  cattle  and  sheep 
will  eat  the  growing  plant  if  it  is  not  too  large  and  coarse, 
and  the  experiment  here  reported  shows  that  lambs  eat  the 
hay  readily,  and  make  good  gains  from  it. 

"Comparing  lots  4  and  5  we  find  that  the  sweet-clover 
lambs  made  an  average  gain  of  30.7  pounds  in  fourteen 
weeks,  while  the  alfalfa  lambs  made  34.4  pounds  gain.  The 
former  ate  one-sixth  more  hay,  somewhat  more  corn,  and  a 
small  amount  of  oil  meal.  The  larger  consumption  of  sweet- 
clover  hay  was  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was  cut  late,  and 
was  very  coarse  and  stemmy.  The  lambs  liked  it,  however, 
and  showed  a  steady  appetite  for  it.  There  was  not  the 
slightest  difficulty  in  getting  them  to  eat  it  at  the  start." 

SUCCESS    WITH    SWEET   CLOVER. 
From  Farm  and  Fireside. 

I  am  so  well  pleased  with  experimenting  with  sweet 
clover  as  a  soil-restorer  and  a  forage  for  live  stock 
that  I  will  endeavor  to  give  a  few  points  on  its  man- 
agement. 

oweet  clover  belongs  to  the  family  of  leguminous 
plants.  The  same  bacteria  live  on  its  roots  that  live 
on  the  roots  of  the  alfalfa  plant.  Some  people  will 
say  alfalfa  is  so  much  better  than  sweet  clover,  why 
not  plant  it?  How  do  they  know  if  they  have  never 
tried  it? 

I  first  used  sweet  clover  as  an  inoculator  for  alfalfa. 

81 


The  bacteria  developed  much  more  rapidly  in  the  soil 
sown  to  sweet  clover  than  in  that  sown  to  alfalfa. 
The  plant  of  sweet  clover  does  not  depend  on  arti- 
ficial inoculation  or  fertilization  as  does  the.  alfalfa 
plant. 

Another  advantage  is  that  the  seeding  does  not  have 
to  be  done  so  early.  The  seed  of  alfalfa  should  be 
sown  from  the  15th  of  August  to  the  first  of  Sep- 
tember, if  best  results  are  expected.  The  seeding  of 
sweet  clover  should  be  done  about  the  first  of  October. 
Four  to  six  weeks  are  gained  for  the  maturing  of 
crops  growing  on  the  land  to  be  sown  to  sweet  clover, 
which  may  be  corn,  tobacco,  tomatoes,  or  other  farm 
and  garden  crops,  while  the  land  to  be  sowrn  to  alfal- 
fa should  be  broken  and  thoroughly  cultivated  before 
seeding,  which  requires  about  four  weeks. 

The  sweet  clover  yields  as  much  forage  as  alfalfa, 
if  not  more.  From  analysis,  the  sweet  clover  con- 
tains the  following  composition: 

Water,  6.86  per  cent;  protein,  22.55  per  cent;  crude 
fiber,  23.49  per  cent;  carbohydrate,  33.61  per  cent;  fat, 
3.91  per  cent;  ash,  10.05  per  cent,  making  its  feeding 
value  as  a  forage  crop  high.  Its  value  as  a  fertilizing 
agent  in  gathering  nitrogen  can  hardly  be  realized.  It 
has  the  ability  to  thrive  splendidly  on  the  poorest 
sandy  soil  and  on  dry  and  badly  washed  hillsides, 
where  the  other  clovers  would  never  start. 

The  seed  of  sweet  clover  should  be  sown  thin  on 
old  worn  fields,  then  the  stalks  will  be  large  and 
heavily  branched,  producing  a  great  amount  of  seed. 
About  the  first  of  September  the  stalks  should  be  cut 
and  placed  in  the  ruts  and  washes.  Then  the  seed 
will  be  scattered  sufficiently  to  set  a  heavy  sod,  and 
will  produce  a  fine  pasture  the  next  season.  The 
second  or  third  year  after  sowing,  blue  grass  will 
take  in  this  locality  and  soon  be  a  solid  set. 

A  description  of  the  sweet-clover  roots  will  show 
that  they  are  a  high-class  fertilizer.  Unlike  other 
legumes  the  roots  are  somewhat  fleshy  and  not 
fibrous.  During  the  first  year  these  roots  reach  far 
into  the  ground  and  draw  up  from  considerable  depth 
an  abundance  of  plant  food  which  they  store  up  for 

82 


the  second  year's  growth.  On  the  death  of  the  plant, 
at  the  close  of  the  second  year,  the  fleshy  roots  de- 
cay more  rapidly  than  fibrous  roots,  and  their  nitro- 
gen becomes  more  quickly  available  for  other  crops. 
My  experiments  cover  the  use  of  the  following  crops 
after  sweet  clover:  Beets,  beans,  onions,  parsnips, 
cauliflower,  celery,  melons,  raspberries,  and  straw- 
berries. All  show  a  marked  advantage  on  the  part 
where  sweet  clover  was  turned  under  after  a  growth 
of  two  seasons.  The  color  and  size  of  plants,  as  well 
as  the  amount  and  quality  of  fruit,  were  noticeable. 

PREPARES  LAND  FOR  ALFALFA. 

I  think  it  one  of  the  finest  things  in  use  to  prepare 
land  for  alfalfa.  Sow  to  sweet  clover  for  one  year; 
break  the  land,  turning  under  the  young  growth  the 
second  spring  about  the  first  of  June,  and  cultivate 
until  ready  to  seed  to  alfalfa.  The  germs  of  bacteria 
will  increase  rapidly  and  the  soil  will  be  filled  so  full 
that  the  alfalfa  plants  will  grow  right  off  and  make 
two  or  more  good  crops  the  first  season  after  sowing 
in  the  early  fall. 

As  a  soiling  crop,  it  is  right  up  to  the  front.  Com- 
bined with  blue  grass  it  makes  one  of  the  finest  pas- 
tures known  to  stockmen.  Unlike  alfalfa,  it  improves 
by  being  pastured,  yet  again,  like  alfalfa,  the  stock 
have  to  become  accustomed  to  it  before  they  will  eat 
it  with  a  relish.  But,  when  once  they  have  learned  to 
eat  it,  they  prefer  it  to  all  other  grasses. 

As  a  pasture  for  hogs,  the  chief  difficulty  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  hogs  want  the  roots  as  well  as  the  tops. 
They  eat  the  grass  readily  from  the  first,  seeming  to 
like  its  peculiar  flavor,  and  are  also  fond  of  the  hay, 
eating  it  more  readily  than  that  of  red  clover. 

Another  one  of  its  many  good  qualities  is  that  cat- 
tle may  be  fed  exclusively  on  sweet  clover  and  under 
the  conditions  most  favorable  to  bloating,  without 
any  danger  from  this  trouble,  cumarin,  one  of  its 
constituents,  the  principle  which  gives  it  its  bitter 
taste,  effectually  preventing  the  fermentation  that  re- 
sults in  bloating. 

Kentucky  J.  W.  GRIFFIN. 

83 


SWEET  CLOVER  FOUND  GOOD. 

This  article  caps  the  discussion  of  the  newly  certified 
merits  of  sweet  clover,  which  we  have  presented  to  our 
readers  in  recent  issues.  Sweet  clover  has  been  given  a  sci- 
entific try-out.  Prof.  B.  C.  Buffum,  director  of  the  Wyoming 
Experiment  Station,  has  taken  it  in  hand.  He  has  grown  it, 
fed  it,  tested  and  observed  it,  and  has  thoroughly  demon- 
strated its  worth.  Furthermore,  he  has  found  hope  of  im- 
proving it,  and  has  undertaken  the  task.  Here  is  his  account. 
—EDITOR,  FARM  AND  FIRESIDE. 

Bokhara,  or  sweet  clover  has  so  long  been  con- 
sidered worse  than  useless  that  there  is  a  widespread 
and  almost  universal  prejudice  against  the  plant. 

Its  hardiness,  adaptability,  persistence,  and  grow- 
ing power  under  adverse  conditions  are  well  known; 
but  it  is  not  easy  to  convince  the  skeptical  that  it  has 
any  kind  of  value,  or  that  improvement  may  make 
sweet  clover  one  of  the  most  important  of  all  our 
forage  crops.  My  experience  with  sweet  clover  dates 
bacK  some  years  and  my  results  with  the  plant  are 
such  that  the  past  season  I  planted  twenty  acres  of  it 
for  breeding  purposes  and  to  improve  the  soil.  I  have 
two  varieties,  and  shall  attempt  crossing  and  hybridiz- 
ing in  addition  to  other  methods  of  changing  its 
character  and  composition. 

So  far  as  I  am  informed,  sweet  clover  first  came  into 
use  as  a  forage  plant  in  Mississippi  and  other  por- 
tions of  the  South.  Then  reports  came  from  Utah 
that  sweet-clover  hay  was  being  baled  and  used  for 
stock-food.  In  1903  I  visited  Big  Horn  Basin,  Wyom- 
ing. Here  on  the  "Pitchfork"  Ranch,  one  of  the  best 
developed  in  the  West,  the  owner  told  me  that  one 
year  he  planted  and  put  up  a  large  area  of  sweet- 
clover  hay,  and  that  his  cattle  apparently  ate  it  as 
well  and  thrived  on  it  as  well  as  they  did  on  alfalfa. 
I  then  resolved  to  carry  out  some  investigations  of 
sweet  clover. 

There  was  an  area  of  land  on  the  Wyoming  Experi- 
ment Station  farm  which  lacked  drainage,  and  where 
tne  accumulation  of  alkali  salts  had  destroyed  a  stand 
of  alfalfa.  This  ground  was  covered  with  a  menacing 
growth  of  what  Western  stockmen  call  "foxtail." 
This  is  not  the  tame  foxtail  of  the  East,  but  more 

84 


properly  a  wild  barley  called  "squirrel-tail  grass"  in 
the  older  botanies.  It  grows  in  waste  places,  or  some- 
times in  meadows,  and  the  beards  -cause  much  trouble 
to  stock  eating  hay  contaminated  with  it.  I  planted 
four  acres  of  this  land  to  sweet  clover  in  spite  of  the 
protests  of  friends  that  I  should  be  mobbed  for  in- 
troducing and  fostering  what  to  them  was  only  a  dan- 
gerous weed.  It  was  planted  late,  and  in  the  short 
season  made  no  growth  that  could  be  harvested  the 
first  year.  The  next  season,  however,  I  cut  two  crops, 
and  put  up  four  small  stacks  of  the  hay.  The  yield 
of  cured  hay  was  2%  tons  to  the  acre.  One-half  the 
hay  was  salted  with  seven  or  eight  pounds  of  common 
salt  to  the  load  as  it  went  into  the  stack. 

The  assistant  head  of  our  live-stock  department  was 
requested  to  make  feeding  trials  with  sweet-clover  hay 
that  fall;  but  either  his  own  skepticism  or  some  other 
cause  prevented  the  order  being  carried  out,  and  my 
sweet-clover  stacks  perfumed  the  air  through  that 
winter  and  the  next  summer  and  fall  before  the  feed- 
ing traits  were  actually  organized.  I  must  pause  here 
to  note  the  first  beneficial  effect  of  growing  sweet 
clover.  In  the  two  seasons  it  had  cured  the  land  of 
foxtail,  and  apparently  did  some  good  to  the  alkalized 
ground  as  well.  Sweet  clover  is  a  weed-eradicator 
and  nitrogen-gatherer  worthy  of  wide  and  extended 
use.  Our  station-chemists'  analyses,  I  remember,  gave 
as  high  as  twenty-three  and  eight-tenths  per  cent, 
crude  protein;  the  others  gave  fifteen  and  nineteen 
per  cent.  At  the  same  time  our  high-altitude-alfalfa 
hay  was  showing  more  richness  than  other  alfalfa, 
with  about  sixteen  per  cent,  protein  and  high  digesti- 
bility. Our  richest  sweet  clover  was  higher  in  protein 
than  any  other  roughage,  and  showed  one  condition  to 
be  avoided.  Care  must  be  taken  not  to  give  too  much 
of  it,  as  stock  may  become  cloyed  and  go  "off  feed" 
from  overfeeding. 

When  given  to  the  lambs  on  experiment,  the  hay 
was  eaten  with  great  relish,  even  the  coarse  stems 
being  readily  consumed.  My  men  fed  carefully,  and 
lots  of  ten  lambs  each  were  fed  on  sweet  clover,  com- 
pared with  alfalfa  and  with  native  hay;  lambs  fed 


the  same  corn  ratio.  It  is  sufficient  for  present  pur- 
poses to  state  that  the  butcher  who  dressed  the  lambs 
testified  that  the  .sweet-clover-fed  lambs  were  the 
fattest  and  finest  carcasses  he  ever  handled,  and  a 
photograph  of  the  dressed  meat  showed  much 
superiority  of  the  sweet-clover  lamb  over  lamb  fed 
native  hay.  The  alfalfa  lambs  gained  34.3  pounds  per 
head,  a  little  less  than  four  pounds  better  than  the 
sweet-clover  lambs.  That  is,  sweet  clover  offers  a  sub- 
stitute almost,  though  not  quite,  of  the  same  feeding 
value  as  alfalfa,  where  the  latter  is  not  available. 
Perhaps  a  portion  of  the  success  was  due  to  curing 
the  hay  in  the  stack  a  year  before  being  fed.  The 
people  of  this  country  have  not  appreciated  the  value 
of  time  in  curing  hay.  I  am  told  that  old-crop  hay 
usually  brings  a  premium  in  the  haymarkets  of  Eng- 
land. The  evidence  is  conclusive  to  me  that  sweet- 
clover  hay,  properly  grown,  handled,  and  fed  has  a 
value  worth  while — at  least  in  many  localities  where 
the  plant  will  thrive  and  where  alfalfa  does  not  do 
well  for  any  reason. 

Perhaps  no  plant  has  a  higher  value  as  a  fertiliz- 
ing agent.  Soil  from  sweet-clover  land  is  useful  in 
inoculation  for  alfalfa  with  nitrogen-gathering  bac- 
teria. So  impressed  have  I  become  with  sweet  clover 
tnat  I  have  taken  up  the  task  of  its  improvement  by 
plant-breeding.  I  believe  it  may  be  made  to  lose  a 
portion  or  all  of  the  cumarin,  which  is  the  bitter- 
sweet principle  that  makes  it  unpalatable  to  stock; 
and  perhaps  it  may  be  possible  to  change  it  into  a 
perennial. 

The  seed  I  bought  for  sweet  clover  at  18  cents  per 
pound  was  adulterated  with  alfalfa  seed,  so  I  have  a 
stand  of  about  half-and-half  sweet  clover  and  alfalfa. 
However,  this  will  not  be  a  serious  disadvantage  and 
I  have  hopes  of  getting  quick  results  in  improving 
sweet  clover,  both  in  palatableness  and  yield. 

Any  one  who  wishes  to  plant  sweet  clover  for  hay 
or  soil  improvement  can  get  seed  from  almost  any 
reliable  seedsman.  I  recommend  planting  fifteen  or 
twenty  pounds  of  hulled  seed  to  the  acre.  It  may  be 
sown  broadcast  if  the  seedbed  is  moist  and  fine,  or, 


better  still,  plant  with  a  press  drill  not  more  than  an 
inch  or  two  deep.  For  hay  it  should  stand  thick  and 
line-stemmed,  and  be  cut  before  it  comes  into  full 
bloom.  The  green  hay  is  quite  succulent,  and  needs 
to  be  cured  in  small  cocks,  allowing  it  to  get  pretty 
dry  before  stacking,  and  then  use  salt  as  indicated 
above.  Sweet  clover  is  a  biennial  plant,  and  will  all 
die  the  second  season  if  not  allowed  to  seed  itself,  so 
u  need  never  become  a  bad  or  persistent  weed. 

B.  C.  BUFFTJM. 

Several  points  regarding  sweet  clover  have  been 
raised  by  interested  readers.  There  is  some  doubt 
regarding  its  blossoming  habits.  In  the  North  it  is  a 
biennial,  seldom  forming  seed  the  first  year.  In  Ken- 
tucky and  further  southward,  however,  correspondents 
tell  us  it  will  seed  the  first  year  with  them,  unless 
cut  twice. 

One  farmer  writes:  "It  does  best  on  a  soil  contain- 
ing a  good  deal  of  lime."  Generally  speaking,  it 
seems  to  grow  on  almost  any  soil  not  too  boggy  or  too 
sour.  A  writer  in  the  Ohio  Farmer  has  had  different 
experience,  however. 

"It  is  rather  more  difficult  to  secure  a  stand  and 
crop  of  sweet  clover  than  of  alfalfa.  As  I  have  inti- 
mated, it  often  comes  of  its  own  free  will  where  it  is 
neither  expected  nor  desired;  but  repeated  efforts  to 
start  it  where  it  has  been  wanted  have  uniformly  re- 
sulted much  less  successfully  than  similar  attempts 
with  alfalfa." 

That  paragraph  sounds  a  sensible  warning  to  those 
who  are  figuring  on  sweet  clover  to  do  too  much.  As 
the  writer  further  states,  however,  some  of  the  un- 
reliability of  stand  may  be  due  to  unreliable  seed. 
Sweet  clover  is  hardly  a  standard  market  article  as 
yet.  While  most  seed-houses  carry  it,  many  of  them 
have  never  found  it  worth  while  to  catalog  it,  owing 
to  the  slim  demand.  The  plant  has  been  so  little 
grown,  commercially,  that  good  seed  is  hard  to  get. 
A  germination  test  is  well  worth  while  before  plant- 
ing. 

We  have  a  lot  to  learn  about  sweet  clover.  This 
much  is  fairly  certain  now:  It  is  a  first-class  soil 

87 


renewer.  It  will  grow  in  many  places  where  alfalfa 
will  not.  It  serves  to  introduce  alfalfa.  When  grown 
and  cured  right  it  makes  a  feed  that  stock  will  not 
only  thrive  on,  but  relish.  As  far  as  feeding  value 
goes,  it  runs  alfalfa  a  close  second.  As  long  as  we 
do  not  make  a  fad  of  it,  we  believe  it  is  destined  to  do 
many  fine  things  for  farmers.  EDITOR. 

SWEET  CLOVER:  ITS  WORTH  AND  ITS 
CULTURE. 

MELILOTUS    INDORSED    AGAIN. 

From  Fftrni  dtuf  Fircxide. 

Sweet  clover  (melilotus)  meets  the  approval  of 
every  farmer  in  this  neighborhood  as  a  valuable  pas- 
ture and  a  soil  restorer.  For  sheep,  cattle,  and  horses 
it  is  hard  to  equal,  and  its  blossoms  are  also  fine  for 
bees.  A  neighbor  who  has  been  in  the  bee  business 
thirty  years  says  his  bees  produced  150  pounds  of 
honey  in  one  season  from  one  stand.  This  may  seem 
an  unqualified  statement,  but  it  is  well  vouched  for. 

This  clover  thrives  on  some  of  the  poorest  soils  here 
in  Southern  Indiana.  Nothing  surpasses  it  for  bring- 
ing back  fertility  to  the  soil  in  the  shortest  time. 
Tne  roots  of  the  plant  the  second  year  go  to  a  great 
depth,  making  them  a  high-class  fertilizer.  On  the 
death  of  the  plant  at  the  close  of  the  second  year  the 
roots  decay  and  the  fields  can  be  plowed  at  this  time 
or  come  again  from  the  seed. 

If  thrashed,  sweet  clover  gives  fifteen  bushels  of 
seed  an  acre,  now  selling  at  three  to  six  dollars  a 
bushel.  If  the  plants  are  plowed  under,  my  expe- 
rience has  been  that  the  land,  after  two  or  four 
years,  is  left  in  shape  to  produce  fifteen  hundred 
pounds  of  tobacco  to  the  acre,  of  the  finest  quality. 
I  believe  every  farmer  who  owns  hill  ground  or  land 
that  is  not  suitable  for  alfalfa  will  be  justified  in 
giving  this  clover  a  trial.  J.  R.  CRAIGMYLE. 

NEW   LIFE  TO  WORN   SOILS. 

My  first  planting  of  sweet  clover  as  a  soil-maker 
was  on  an  old,  worn,  and  almost  completely  exhausted 


field,  one  that  had  been  thrown  out  in  the  commons. 
A  five  or  six  years'  growth  of  scrub  oak  and  sassafras 
bushes  covered  the  ground  where  the  washes  and 
gullies  were  not  so  numerous  as  to  prevent  their 
growth.  The  soil,  geologically  speaking,  once  was  a 
clay  loam  (now  all  gone).  The  subsoil  was  yellow 
clay  underlaid  by  a  stratum  of  clay,  sand,  and  gravel. 
I  give  this  full  description  of  the  condition  and  the 
character  of  the  soil  because  there  are  so  many  similar 
farms  in  the  same  condition,  not  only  here  in  Ken- 
tucky, but  through  the  whole  Mississippi  Valley, 
north  and  south,  and  there  are  so  many  farmers  who 
might  be  benefited,  if  they  only  would  be,  by  sowing 
sweec  clover. 

The  oak  and  sassafras  bushes  were  cut  and  piled 
in  tne  gullies;  the  top  of  the  brush  was  laid  up  the 
hill  so  that  the  forks  of  the  little  limbs  would  catch 
the  trash.  This  would  catch  other  trash  and  earth, 
which  would  fill  in  around  the  larger  brush  and  soon 
ft-1  the  gully.  The  backbones,  or  little  ridges,  be- 
tween the  gullies  were  dug  off  into  the  gullies  and 
tramped  hard  on  to  the  bushes.  The  larger  ridges 
were  plowed  and  harrowed,  then  the  entire  field  was 
sown  in  the  spring  to  sweet  clover  and  blue-grass. 

The  sweet  clover  came  up  nicely  the  first  season; 
but  the  blue-grass  did  not  come  up  until  the  second; 
then  the  sweet  clover  was  tall  enough  to  shade  the 
tender  grass  through  the  heat  of  summer  and  to  pro- 
tect it  through  the  winter.  At  the  end  of  the  second 
season,  when  the  sweet  clover  went  to  seed,  there- 
was  a  growth  of  the  sweet  clover  fully  six  feet  tall, 
and  heavy  enough  to  hide  a  sheep  any  place  in  the 
field.  The  blue-grass  was  five  or  six  inches  tall,  but 
thin  on  the  ground.  When  the  ground  was  dry,  dur- 
ing the  fall  and  early  winter,  this  field  was  pastured 
with  a  few  mules  and  horses.  In  feeding  on  the  grass 
they  trod  down  the  dead  sweet-clover  stalks,  which 
served  as  a  mulch  to  the  seedling  sweet  clover,  and 
prevented  the  ground  from  washing.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  third  season  a  fine  crop  of  the  sweet  clover 
came  up,  which  with  the  blue-grass  made  fine  grazing. 

89 


HOW   TO   HANDLE    SWEET   CLOVER. 

The  amount  of  (hulled)  seed  to  the  acre,  for  hay, 
is  thirty  pounds;  that  for  pasture  and  for  green 
manure,  as  in  cases  like  the  above,  is  fifteen  pounds. 
As  the  stems  or  stalks  of  sweet  clover  become  hard 
and  woody,  when  thoroughly  developed,  it  is  neces- 
sary, to  secure  good  hay,  to  sow  the  seed  so  thickly 
that  the  plants  are  dwarfed.  But  for  building  up 
old  fields,  and  to  seed  to  pasture,  we  want  a  large 
growth  of  plants  which  will  give  us  the  largest 
amount  of  seed  the  second  year  and  large  stalks  to 
protect  the  young  grass;  hence  we  sow  less  to  the 
acre. 

I  have  tried  spring,  summer,  and  fall  sowing,  and 
found  very  little  difference,  as  the  seed  germinates 
slowly,  when  sown  at  any  time.  If  sown  in  the  spring 
I  would  advise  sowing  with  it  a  light  seeding  of 
spring  oats.  I  have  found  that,  to  follow  along  Na- 
ture's lines  in  seeding,  or,  in  other  words,  to  sow  the 
seed  of  grasses  just  after  the  time  of  the  ripening  of 
the  seed,  will  give  a  good  stand,  other  conditions 
being  favorable. 

Where  grown  for  hay,  sweet  clover  should  be  har- 
vested twice  the  first  season.  It  will  not  go  to  seed 
the  first  year  if  it  is  cut  twice.  Where  it  is  cut  twice 
the  second  season  there  is  very  little  seed  formed. 
The  plant  of  sweet  clover  dies  at  the  end  of  the  second 
season. 

Sweet  clover  should  be  cut  a  little  earlier  in  its 
growth  than  alfalfa,  as  the  stalks  are  more  of  a  woody 
nature.  Just  before  the  first  blossoms  appear  gives 
the  best  quality  of  hay. 

The  great  difficulty  with  sweet  clover  has  been  its 
unpalatability  to  stock.  In  grazing  on  young  plants, 
however,  the  stock  begin  on  it  when  other  grass  is 
short,  and  they  gradually  become  accustomed  to  it. 
I  note  in  particular  that  horses,  mules,  sheep,  and 
cattle  take  to  it  readily,  when  turned  on  it  during  a 
dry  time  when  pasture  is  short.  It  is  not  affected  by 
extremely  dry  or  hot  weather,  as  are  other  pastures. 

There  is  quite  a  difference  between  the  palatability 

90 


of  the  tender  green  plant  and  the  cured  hay.  The 
plant  develops  the  bitter  or  acid  flavor  when  about 
half  grown,  or  about  the  time  to  cut  for  hay.  If,  how- 
ever, the  sweet  clover  is  mixed  with  other  hay  in  feed- 
ing the  stock  at  first,  they  will  soon  develop  a  taste 
for  it,  and  will  prefer  it  to  other  hay. 

There  is  quite  an  advantage  in  sowing  sweet  clover 
with  alfalfa,  ten  pounds  of  sweet  clover  and  twenty 
pounds  of  alfalfa.  The  stalks  01  the  sweet  clover  hold 
the  alfalfa  from  falling,  and  the  mixture  makes  a 
splendid  hay.  J.  W.  GRIFFIN. 

FURTHER  TESTIMONY. 

A  few  weeks  ago,  while  taking  a  buggy-ride  through 
this  county,  my  traveling  companion  pointed  to  a 
lot  of  dry  weed-stalks  lining  the  roadside  and  said: 
"I  wish  the  highway  superintendent  would  have  those 
cut  when  they  ought  to  be  cut.  They  are  fhe  worst 
weeds  we  have." 

"Not  so,"  said  I.  "but  one  of  the  most  useful  weeds 
we  have,  and  one  holding  much  promise,  but  never  a 
pest."  It  was  sweet  or  melilot  clover  which  here,  as 
in  many  other  sections,  is  found  in  great  abundance 
on  roadsides,  railroad  embankments,  and  waste  places. 
It  covers  such  spots  with  thrifty  verdure,  furnishes 
bee  pasture  for  many  weeks,  and,  if  we  only  knew 
how  to  handle  it  just  right,  it  would  be  serviceable 
for  other  useful  agricultural  purposes. 

Years  ago  I  called  attention  in  these  columns  to 
melilot  clover  as  one  of  our  most  promising  cover 
crops  and  soil-renovators.  It  gives  an  astonishing 
lot  of  green  stuff  in  a  surprisingly  short  time,  and  it 
draws  nitrogen  from  the  atmosphere  equal  to  vetch 
and  alfalfa.  In  its  earlier  stages,  sweet  clover  closely 
resembles  alfalfa,  and  from  the  looks  of  both  I  should 
think  that  there  might  not  be  much  difference  in  the 
taste.  One  of  my  cows,  when  tied  out  in  a  meadow, 
ate  the  grass  down  well  to  the  ground,  but  left  the 
alfalfa-plants  untouched,  just  as  another  in  another 
patch  left  the  sweet-clover  plants,  until  the  one  be- 
came used  to  the  taste  of  alfalfa  and  learned  to  eat 
sweet  clover.  I  find  my  cattle  will  eat  alfalfa  and 


sweet  clover,  cut  young,  as  well  as  vetch    (another 
plant  at  first  rejected)  with  apparent  relish: 

I  am  glad  to  see  the  real  merits  of  melilot  clover 
more  and  more  appreciated,  as  may  be  seen  in  the 
columns  of  recent  issues  of  FARM  AND  FIRESIDE  and 
other  agricultural  papers.  Hundreds  and  thousands 
of  acres  in  the  suburbs  of  our  cities,  and  other  un- 
occupied lands  in  their  vicinity,  are  annually  covered 
with  a  dense  mass  of  sweet  clover,  and  all  of  this  is 
anowed  to  go  to  waste,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  dead 
and  leafless  stalks  every  fall.  If  cut  in  proper  season 
it  might  be  utilized  for  food  for  horses,  cattle,  swine, 
and  poultry  in  the  closed  season.  It  has  the  same 
food  value  as  alfalfa  meal.  When  the  sweet-clover 
piant  gets  old  and  tough  and  woody,  and  loses  its 
leaves,  it  has  also  lost  its  feeding  value.  Secure  it 
in  time.  T.  GREINER. 

SWEET  CLOVER  IN  ALFALFA  MEADOWS. 
From  The  Ohio  Farmer. 

In  buying  Western  alfalfa  seed  one  is  pretty  apt  to 
get  a  small  proportion  of  sweet  clover  along  with  it 
(Melilotus  alba).  It  had  not  occurred  to  the  writer 
to  mention  the  presence  of  sweet  clover  in  alfalfa 
seed;  but  as  he  now  recalls  it  he  can  not  remember 
an  alfalfa-field  established  upon  Woodland  Farm  with- 
in recent  years  where  sweet  clover  did  not  appear  in 
greater  or  less  amounts  the  first  year.  Some  of  it  will 
even  show  the  second  year,  but  after  that  it  is  seen 
no  more.  Sweet  clover  is  a  biennial,  and  can  not  en- 
dure mowing  off.  If  not  allowed  to  mature  seed  it  is 
soon  extinct.  It  is  hardly  right  to  classify  sweet 
clover  with  weeds,  since  it  is  a  splendid  soil-enricher, 
one  of  the  most  energetic  nitrogen-gatherers  known, 
and  it  carries  the  same  nitrifying  bacteria  that  alfalfa 
does,  and  is  thus  a  direct  benefit  to  a  young  alfalfa- 
field,  since  it  pioneers  the  way  and  makes  the  alfalfa 
that  succeeds  it  thrive  all  the  better.  However,  one 
should  mow  it  off  at  least  two  or  three  times  in  a 
year,  and  that  will  prevent  its  seeding  and  becoming 
too  plentiful. 

Sweet  clover  in  the  South  is  much  used  as  a  sheep 
and  pig  pasture.  It  is  greedily  eaten  there  when  it 

92 


comes  up  first  in  the  spring.  It  makes  a  hay  too 
coarse  and  woody  to  be  relished  by  most  animals,  and 
has  also  an  odor  that  seems  too  strong  for  Northern 
stock.  It  is  a  splendid  bee  pasture,  however. 

I  mention  these  peculiarities  about  sweet  clover  so 
that  men  getting  a  little  of  it  in  alfalfa  seed  may  not 
be  frightened.  They  should  go  on  as  though  they  had 
none  of  it.  Their  alfalfa-meadows,  in  order  to  suc- 
ceed, will  need  to  be  cut  at  least  three  times  a  year, 
and  that  will  vanquish  every  bit  of  the  sweet  clover. 

CHARLES  B.  WING. 

Champaign  Co.,  O. 

SWEET   CLOVER. 

F.  L.,  Gallia  Co.,  O.,  writes:  "Will  the  Ohio  Farmer 
give  experience  in  growing  sweet  clover — best  time 
and  manner  of  seeding,  etc.?  State  where  seed  can 
be  had.  I  have  heard  that  it  is  a  good  crop  to  pre- 
cede alfalfa,  and  wish  to  try  it  with  this  in  view; 
also  as  a  pasture  crop  for  hogs." 

A  subscriber  from  Brown  Co.,  O.,  also  writes:  "I 
have  read  quite  a  lot  of  late  concerning  sweet  clover. 
Please  advise  what  you  know  about  this  legume.  Is  it 
more  sure  to  make  a  catch  than  red  clover?  Is  it  best 
for  pasture  or  hay?  I  see  it  growing  along  our  road- 
sides, apparently  untouched  by  live  stock." 

There  are  a  great  many  different  species  of  legumes 
passing  under  the  name  of  sweet  clover,  some  of 
which  are  of  little  or  no  value.  The  most  common 
as  well  as  the  most  valuable  species  in  the  central 
States  is  Melilotus  aWa,  known  variously  as  sweet 
clover,  bokhara,  large  white  clover,  melilot,  and  white 
melilot.  This  is  widely  distributed  over  the  United 
States,  growing  quite  freely  along  roadsides  and  waste 
places.  Under  these  conditions  it  is  hardy  and  per- 
sistent; but  let  it  once  understand  that  its  presence 
is  desired— that  is,  prepare  a  good  seed-bed  for  it, 
and  nurse  it,  and  it  is  affrighted! 

I  should  perhaps  state  that  Melilotus  alia  is  a  bi- 
ennial, resembling  alfalfa  not  a  little.  Indeed,  up  to 
blooming  time  it  is  not  unusual  to  mistake  one  for 
the  other.  It  is  three-leaved,  erect,  and  somewhat 


coarser  than  alfalfa.  Its  blossoms  are  slender  and 
white,  rarely  appearing  until  the  second  year.  It  has 
a  characteristic  odor,  and  is  not  liked  at  first  by  live 
stock.  Undoubtedly  its  greatest  value  is  as  a  soil- 
improver,  although  it  is  claimed  that  stock  can  be 
accustomed  to  it  so  that  they  will  eat  it  with  some 
relish.  Chemical  analysis  shows  it  to  be  similar  in 
composition  to  alfalfa.  I  suppose  that,  in  spite  of  this 
fact,  they  may  seem  to  be  as  far  apart  as  diamonds 
and  charcoal  (both  having  the  same  chemical  make- 
up) to  the  ultimate  consumer. 

Unquestionably  sweet  clover  is  a  desirable  crop 
to  precede  alfalfa,  since  the  bacteria  which  work  upon 
the  roots  of  sweet  clover  also  work  upon  alfalfa;  but 
if  our  correspondent's  experience  should  be  anything 
like  the  writer's  he  will  find  it  rather  more  difficult  to 
secure  a  stand  and  crop  of  sweet  clover  than  of  al- 
falfa. As  I  have  intimated,  it  often  comes  of  its  own 
free  will  where  it  is  neither  expected  nor  desired;  but 
repeated  efforts  to  start  it  where  it  has. been  wanted 
have  uniformly  resulted  much  less  successfully  than 
similar  attempts  with  alfalfa.  Accordingly,  I  can 
hardly  recommend  it  as  a  John  the  Baptist  for  alfalfa. 
Nor  do  I  think  it  anywhere  near  as  sure  a  crop  as 
red  clover. 

One  great  trouble,  perhaps  the  greatest,  is  to  secure 
good  germinable  seed.  Just  why  this  is  true  I  won't 
attempt  to  say.  I  have  tried  many  different  seeds- 
men, and  it  is  only  rarely  that  I  have  succeeded  in 
getting  hold  of  seed  one-half  of  which  would  grow. 
I  would  suggest  that,  before  purchasing  seed,  our 
correspondents  ask  for  small  samples  and  test  them 
for  germination. 

As  to  time  of  seeding,  it  is  probable  that  June,  July, 
and  August  are  as  satisfactory  months  to  seed  sweet 
clover  as  any.  I  would  sow  15  to  20  pounds  of  hulled 
seed,  or  half  a  bushel  of  unhulled  seed  per  acre,  on  a 
clean  moist  seed-bed,  harrowing  it  in,  as  one  would 
alfalfa.  It  may  also  be  seeded  in  corn  at  the  last 
cultivation  with  some  degree  of  success  where  the 
ground  is  full  of  humus,  and  moisture  conditions  are 
favorable  after  seeding.  It  is  of  doubtful  utility  as  a 

94 


forage  crop;  but  as  a  catch  or  cover  crop  it  may  pos- 
sibly become  of  some  moment.  It  should  be  stated 
that  it  affords  excellent  pasturage  for  bees. 

SWEET    CLOVER   AS    A   FORERUNNER   OF   OTHER  VEGETATION. 

We  have  sweet  clover  growing  in  abundance  on  our  road- 
sides here,  but  I  have  not  observed  any  instance  where  it  is 
growing  to  any  extent  in  cultivated  fields.  When  I  was  a 
boy  our  roadsides  were  covered  with  many  weeds.  They 
were  generally  pastured  down  into  the  ground  with  sheep 
and  cattle.  Later,  ragweed  grew  abundantly.  Some  12  or 
lo  years  ago  sweet  clover  commenced  to  grow  in  patches. 
It  was  undoubtedly  distributed  over  wide  extents  of  terri- 
tory by  the  wheels  of  vehicles  and  not  by  any  hand-sowing. 
Now  I  notice  this  :  Where  the  clover  has  grown  thick  for  a 
few  years  it  seems  to  die  out  and  give  place  to  our  natural 
bluegrass.  In  other  words,  our  friend  the  sweet  clover 
(melilotus)  has  perfo<rmed  its  mission — that  of  growing 
upon  and  enriching  an  otherwise  barren  soil,  leaving  its 
legacy,  the  nitrogen  nodules,  which  are  said  to  be  the  same 
as  on  alfalfa.  Who  would  not  rather  drive  along  a  road  with 
the  perfume  of  the  sweet  clover  coming  to  him  from  both 
sides  than  the  hay-f ever-promoting  ragweed  pollen? 

Lenawee  Co.,  Mich.  ABNER  WILSON. 

YELLOW  SWEET  CLOVER  SOWN  IN  NOVEMBER,  AND  IN  FULL 
BLOOM  THE  FOLLOWING  JUNE. 

June  14,  1909,  Mr.  Philip  Bohley,  a  man  in  our  employ, 
brought  me  a  stalk  of  yellow  sweet  clover  5  ft.  tall,  covered 
with  bloom.  He  said  the  plant  came  from  seed  that  he 
sprinkled  along  the  roadside  in  November  the  fall  before. 
He  did  not  notice  whether  the  seed  came  up  in  the  fall  or 
not.  All  he  could  say  was  that  there  was  no  sweet  clover 
in  that  place  the  year  before.  The  circumstance  was  so 
remarkable  that  myself  and  Ernest  took  a  trip  there  to  see 
it ;  and  the  picture  adjoining  is  supposed  to  be  myself  stand- 
ing among  the  sweet-clover  plants.  I  took  off  my  fur  cap 
and  donned  Ernest's  hat,  and  that  is  one  reason  why  I  do 
not  look  natural. 

The  matter  was  mentioned  in  GLEANINGS  for  July  1,  1909, 
page  418,  and  I  then  inquired  if  anybody  else  had  secured 
a  successful  stand  of  sweet  clover,  either  white  or  yellow, 
when  the  seed  was  sown  as  late  as  November.  Several  let- 
ters informed  us  that  the  same  thing  had  been  done  by 
sowing  the  seed  in  August  and  September,  but  none  as  late 
as  November.  Mr.  Bohley  says  the  horses  grab  for  it  every 
time  they  go  past  it.  Remember  this  seed  was  not  in  culti- 
vated soil,  nor  had  any  effort  been  made  to  cover  the  seed 
in  any  way.  It  was  just  scattered  along  the  roadside  ad- 
Joining  his'  own  premises.  If  this  thing  can  be  duplicated 
it  would  seem  to  indicate  that  yellow  sweet  clover  will  fur- 
nish a  large  amount  of  good  food  for  stock,  or  for  plowing 
under,  in  a  shorter  time  than  any  other  legume  or  anything 

June,  1910.  A.  I.  ROOT. 

95 


Table  of  Contents. 

(Continued  from  page  two  of  cover) 

Poultry,    for     93 

Preparing  the  ground  for  sowing  other  crops 75,  84 

Preparing  land  for  alfalfa  5,  63 

Preventing  honey  from  granulating 46 

Quality  of  honey  from 14 

Railway  banks,  sweet  clover  on    61 

Restorer   of   poor   soils    88 

Roads,  for  making 13,  32,  33 

Roots   of   for   pigs 79,  83 

Roots  of  sweet  clover   for  pigs 74,  80 

Roots,    value    of    73 

Roots,  28  tons  per  acre    72 

Rural   New-Yorker,   clippings  from    52 

Seed   required   per  acre 9,   86,   90,  94 

Seed,    imported     4 

Seed,  gathering    69,  75 

Sheep,    for    5,    40,   79,    80,  93 

Soil-renovator,   sweet  clover  for 91 

Sowing,  time  for    82,  90 

Stand,  difficulties  in  getting  a  good  one 68 

Stock  learning  to  eat  sweet  clover 28 

Sweet  clover  nine  feet  tall   48 

Tap  roots,  enormous    55 

Ten  feet  high 77 

Thrashing   out   the   seed    16,  17 

Unhulled  slow  in  germination   46 

Utah   for   sweet   clover    : 35 

Value  of  per  acre  for  honey    42,  43,  49,  65 

Value    for    hay     85 

Value  for  milch  cows 35,  36 

Weed,  noxious,  is  sweet  clover  ever  ? 3,  43 

Winter-killing 7,  8 

Yellow  sweet  clover   14,  15,  17,  41,  45,  72 


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